The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN AMERICA. 201
foundations of this stupendous temple, 39 and passed
through the horrible mysteries of the Mexican religion,
which emblematically represented the wanderings of
their god. These caverns were denominated, the path of
the dead. Here he saw such sights as made his blood run
cold. The phantoms of slain victims passed before his
eyes; this moment seen, the next lost in the darkness.
Now he heard the groans of the dying, the shrieks of
despair, and the howlings of hopeless grief, rendered still
more dismaying by the ominous sound of the sacred
horn, 40 while he passed, with tottering footsteps, the
dungeons where religious victims were confined. Every
step he took, some horrible object flitting across the
gloom met his eyes ; some sound, appalling to his senses, 41
struck upon his ear; and he proceeded with measured
pace, fearful lest the knife of the sacrificing priest should
be next applied to him ; or that an incautious step might
precipitate him into some deep and hidden pitfall, where
resembling the extraordinary caverns in the peak of Derbyshire, have
recently been found about twelve miles from Albany. (Gent's. Mag.,
Jan., 1822.)
39 "I have been assured," says M. Humboldt, (Res., vol. i., p. 90,)
(!
is hol-
by some Indians of Cholula, that the inside of the pyramids
low and that ;
during the abode of Cortes in this city, their ancestors
had concealed in the body of the pyramid
a considerable number of
warriors, who were to fall suddenly on the Spaniards ; but the
materials of which the teocalli is built, and the silence of the historians
of those 'times, give bul; little probability to this latter assertion. It
is certain, however, that in the interior of the pyramids there are con-
siderable cavities, which were used as sepulchres," &c.
40 Univ. Displayed, vol. i., p. 194.
41 U A traveller of credit gives us an account, in the Philosophical
Transactions, of a remarkable cave, some leagues to the north-west of
Mexico, gilded all over with a sort of leaf-gold, which had eluded
many Spaniards by its promising colour, for they could never reduce
it into a body, either by quicksilver or fusion. This traveller went
thither one morning, with an Indian for his guide, and found its situation
was pretty high, and in a place very proper for the generation of
metals. As he entered into it, the light of the candle soon discovered
on all sides, but especially over his head, a glittering canopy of these
mineral leaves ; at which he greedily snatching, there fell down a great
lump of sand, that not only put out his candle, but almost blinded him ;
and calling aloud to his Indian, who stood at the entrance of the cave,
as, being afraid of spirits and hobgoblins, it occasioned such thundering
and redoubled echoes, that the poor fellow, imagining he had been
wrestling with some infernal ghosts, soon quitted his station, and
thereby left a free passage for some rays of light to enter, and serve him
for a better guide." (Univ. Displayed, vol. i., p. 397.)