LINDBERGH’S FIND

Hokitika Guardian, 8 October 1929, Page 2

LINDBERGH’S FIND

AN ANCIENT CITY. Details of the lost Maya city discovered by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, and the manner in which he found it, were revealed by officials ol j the Pan-American Airways, which operates mail and passenger air lines between North and South America and with which Colonel Linbergh is connected (says and American paper.) Last February Colonel Lindbergh piloted the first Pan-American ’plane over the route from Miami to Panama. On the way south he was running to schedule, but on the way back there was no hurry and Lindbergh decided to go on a sight-seeing jaunt. Turning inland at Belize, British Honduras, he flew over interior regions of the Mexican Province of Quintana Roo, through which white men had never penetrated. In this dense jungle country the Maya Indians lived and built their cities long before Christ, but since that time only scattered colonies of Indians have inhabited the district, believed by some to be descendants of the ancient Mayas. Colonel Lindbergh headed north, towards Merida, Yucatan, and while he was yet many miles away his attention was caught .by what seemed to be two emerald eyes staring up at him out of the tangle of jungle bush. The country he was passing over is shown in white op the maps; uncharted land which archaeologists ’ know must be filled with rich treasures of past glories, but-so inaccessible that though employees,,of the Carnegie 4 Institute have long been, pushing towards it through the jungle they have never reached it.

As Colonel Lindbergh dropped low Ilfbeheld the ruins of a city some eight miles in (diameter, eroded but not yet entirely erased by time. Out of the tangled verdure there arose numerous small pyramids and. one stately pile, some 250 feet high, holding aloft the ruins off an ancient Maya temple. At the foot of’ this temple were two green pools of water that from high above had looked like eyes gazing out of the bush. Apparently formed by breaks in the earth above the course of an underground river they had been caught by the Mayas and held in basins of white stucco; work done 2000 or 3000 years ago. No one can tell when.

Colonel Lindbergh was accompanied on his “runaway” flight only by a PanAmerican official and Harry B.uskey, one of the company’s radio operators, and circled low over the lost city. There was no sign of any human life, and the colonel and his companions realised that they were perhaps the first persons to gaze upon it since before the beginning of the Christian era.

Colonel Lindbergh had no camera with him on that flight through Quintana Roo, and so he took no pictures at that time, but it was said recently that he has expressed a desire to return there in the- future and on this occasion it is believed he will take full equipment for bringing out pictures.