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We passed many groups of
people moving in both directions, none moving with as much dispatch was we. Several
of these parties were very heavily loaded down and looking bewildered we could
only suppose that they were travelers new to this grand tunnel way. We passed as well
now less then two rest chambers in our haste. Past this second chamber the grand
tunnel grew even larger in all dimensions. So high was the ceiling that we observed that
it formed its our weather, as clouds formed and rained down on us. The local dwellings were
so dense as to be continues as in the streets of a great city. The light now was very
bright and continuos almost as if the stone itself was glowing with light. The grand
tunnel formed a gentle curve and as we ran along a cleared pathway set aside just
for parties such as ourselves we saw what appeared to all in our party to be a sun
rise from the inner curve of the tunnel. Our minders pushed us on and it became clear
that the tunnels mouth lead to an even larger chamber so filled with light that it
was almost like running toward the sun rise. As our eyes adjusted we could see the
signs of human activity within this sun rise, locals going about their liver in the
chamber beyond the tunnels great mouth. Our guide explained that it was in fact night
in the inner kingdom, but that even the at night the light seems intense for those
emerging from the portal.
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e exited the mammoth cave into what we expected to be an colossal, underground chamber,
only to find ourselves on the streets of some city. Instead of discovering an
underground kingdom, we appeared to have travel underground to a remote city on the
surface. We were greeted by many happy local, but the exhaustion and disappointment
overcame us all, as we could do little more then collapse onto a curb of the street.
Our porters and guide were soon joined by women and children. Clearly this was the
motivation force behind their rush to complete this journey. They all spoke in
the as yet untranslatable form of Chinese spoken by the tunnel dwellers. It appeared
that each man has maintained a family at each end of the passage. Soon their
attention was returned to us as the families dung us all to houses in which we could
rest.
n the morning we slow awoke to the sound of children and the city. The houses of
the porters we small but well accoutermented. The wives had been busying themselves
with the preparation of a morning meal. After the rest and meal our spirits were
beginning to revive as we realized that even if we had not discovered an underground
kingdom, we had managed to discover a city which seemed to have be lost to the
rest of the world.
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