Page 2 (1/1)

The manuscript of this tale has been in h natural lines of inheritance, but re revealed a certain historic basis; then,note of correspondences in minor details, I realized that what I had cast aside as ht possess a substantial foundation of fact Impelled by this conviction, I now submit the narrative to public inspection, that others, better fitted than I, e as to the worth of this Geoffrey Benteen

According to the earlier records of Louisiana Province, Geoffrey Benteen was, during his later years, a resident of La Petite Rocher, ahis fellows There he died in old age, leaving no indication of the extent of his knowledge, other than what is to be found in the yellowed pages of his manuscript; and these afford no evidence that this "Gentleman Adventurer" possessed any infor those relics of a prehistoric people, which are widely scattered throughout the Middle and Southern States of the Union and constitute the grounds on which our century has applied to the race the term "Mound Builders"

Apparently in all simplicity and faithfulness he recordedhis death, has seely proven that in the extinct Natchez tribe was to be found the last remnant of that mysterious and unfortunate race

Who were the Mound Builders? No living e, weird, ht before tradition, its sole reuessed at by those who study graves; their pathetic ending has long been pictured in our country's story as occurring aht upon the banks of the Ocatahoola, when vengeful Frenchmen put them to the sword Whence they came, whether from fabled Atlantis, or the extinct Aztec eue can tell; whither fled their remnant,--if remnant there was left to flee,--and what proved its ultimate fate, no previous pen has written Out froures, they cale line upon the earth's surface, and vanished, kings and people alike sinking into speechless oblivion

That Geoffrey Benteen witnessed the tragic ending of this strange people I no longer question; for I have coarding thees of Park to awaken the slightest suspicion that he dealt with other than what he saw More, I have traced with exactitude the route these fugitives followed in their flight northward, and, although the features of the country are greatly altered by settlements of nearly two hundred years, one may easily discern evidence of this h to feel that I have stood beside the massive tomb of this mysterious people--a people once opulent and powerful, the warriors of forgotten battle-fields, the builders of lost civilizations, thefrom the Red River of the North to the sea-coast of the Carolinas; a people swept backward as by the wrath of the Infinite, scourged by faainst by flaeful enemies, until a weakened reht to fulfil the fate ordained of God, and finally perished a to the curious future neither a language nor a name