It perhaps comes as no surprise to learn that the publicity John Lloyd Stephens gave to the mysterious city of Central America, and to the underground tunnels, revived interest once again in the lost treasures of the Incas which Atahualpa’s Queen had hidden away centuries before. The Peruvian authorities in particular decided to recommence searching for the entrances to the secret tunnels following a rather curious incident in 1844. The incident, related by Harold Wilkins in his book, Mysteries of Ancient South America, concerned the dying words of a Quichua Indian (a direct descendant of the Inca Peruvians) and the secret he confessed to an old Catholic priest:
The story was about a mystery of a labyrinth and a series of amazing tunnels going back far beyond the days of the Inca emperors of the sun. It was told under the inviolable seal of the confessional and could not be divulged by the priest under pain of hell fire; and it would probably have remained a secret had not the old priest, in a trail of the mountains, come into the company of a sinister Italian, who was on his travels to Lima. This Italian, with very dark, piercing eyes, and a hypnotic stare, talked to the old priest, who, unwittingly, let drop a hint about a long-sought hidden and very ancient treasure. The sinister gentleman, said to have come from Naples, somehow managed to hypnotise the old priest into telling him the story the priest had learnt, under confession, from the dying Peruvian peasant. The latter had said that his strange secret was known to many pure-blooded Quichua Indians, descendants of the old Incas, but not to the half-caste Mestizos, who were deemed unreliable.
What the dying Indian was supposed to have revealed was where an entrance to the amazing tunnel-labyrinths could be found, and when the sinister Italian took word of this confession to the authorities – in return for a share of any discoveries, needless to say – the Peruvians instituted a large-scale hunt for the concealed opening. Although details of this search remain scant, it seems the hunters were disguised as scientists and archaeologists to conceal the true nature of their mission from the suspicious Quichua Indians. True or not, the men searched in vain for two years, and then returned to Lima no wiser than they had set out. Atahualpa’s treasure remained inviolate.
There is a curious sequel to this story which involves Madame Helena Blavatsky, the remarkable lady we met earlier in this book. It also takes us another major step forward in our search for concrete details about the subterranean tunnels of South America. Apparently Madame Blavatsky met this selfsame mysterious Italian who had hypnotized the old priest. The encounter occurred in Lima, and the Italian told Madame Blavatsky that although the authorities had abandoned their search, he believed he had found an entrance to the labyrinths of tunnels. However, he said he had neither the time nor the money to continue the search any further.
As Madame Blavatsky was herself going to the vicinity where the man said the entrance was located – Arica, near the Peruvian border – she decided to investigate for herself. Here is what she discovered, as she relates in her book Isis Unveiled (1877):
Going southward from Lima by water we reached a point near Arica at sunset, and were struck by the appearance of an enormous rock, nearly perpendicular, which stood in mournful solitude on the shore, apart from the range of the Andes. It was the tomb of the Incas. As the last rays of the setting sun strike the face of the rock, one can make out, with an ordinary opera-glass, some curious hieroglyphics inscribed on the volcanic surface.
When Cuzco was the capital of Peru, it contained a temple of the sun, famed far and near for its magnificence. It was roofed with thick plates of gold, and the walls were covered with the same precious metal; the eave-troughs were also of solid gold. In the west wall the architects had contrived an aperture in such a way that when the sunbeams reached it, it focused them inside the building. Stretching like a golden chain from one sparkling point to another, they encircled the walls, illuminating the grim idols, and disclosing certain mystic signs at other times invisible. It was only by understanding these hieroglyphics – identical with those which may be seen to this day on the tomb of the Incas – that one could learn the secret of the tunnel and its approaches. Among the latter was one in the neighbourhood of Cuzco, now masked beyond discovery. This leads directly into an immense tunnel which runs from Cuzco to Lima, and then, turning southward, extends into Bolivia. At a certain point it is intersected by a royal tomb. Inside this sepulchral chamber are cunningly arranged two doors; or, rather, two enormous slabs which turn upon pivots, and close so tightly as to be only distinguishable from the other portions of the sculptured walls by the secret signs, whose key is in the possession of the faithful custodians. One of these turning slabs covers the southern mouth of the Liman tunnel – the other, the northern one of the Bolivian corridor. The latter, running southward, passes through Trapaca and Cobijo, for Arica is not far away from the little river called Payaquina, which is the boundary between Peru and Bolivia.
THE KING OF THE WORLD?
Is there an underground cave city called Agharti ruled by a Venusian who holds our future hopes?
ALL through the world today are thousands of people who claim to have knowledge of an underground city, not specifically located although generally assumed to be in Tibet, called Agharti, or Shambala. In this city, they say, is a highly developed civilization ruled by an “Elder” or a “Great One” whose title is among others “The King of the World.” Some claim to have seen him, and it is also claimed that he made at least one visit to the surface. It is also claimed that when Mankind is ready for the benefits he can bring, he will emerge and establish a new civilization of peace and plenty.
To quote the words of a “witness”: “He came here ages ago from the planet Venus to be the instructor and guide of our then just dawning humanity. Though he is thousands of years old, his appearance is that of an exceptionally well-developed and handsome youth of about sixteen. But there is nothing juvenile about the light of infinite love, wisdom and power that shines from his eyes. He is slightly larger than the average man, but there are no radical differences in race.”
Apparently the ruler of Agharti is a man; apparently he possesses great power and science, including atomic energy machines. Apparently also he is dedicated to bring to us great benefits. Apparently he has power to end warfare on the surface at will. We, the people of Earth, ask: What man can judge another? Wars must end now! Judge not, Great One, lest you be judged. For we ARE ready for peace!
The Legend of Agharti – as presented by Ray Palmer in Amazing Stories, May, 1946.
Disclosing the existence of this tunnel in her matter-of-fact way, Madame Blavatsky almost conceals from the reader its true extent. For if we glance at a map, we can see that the distance from Cutzco to Lima is approximately 380 miles, and then, having turned southwards, the tunnel goes on into Bolivia, a distance of almost 900 miles! (It has been suggested by several authorities that after passing beneath Tarapaca and Cobijo – now in Chile – the tunnel turns eastwards, progressing under the cordillera, and ends, or more likely is lost, somewhere in the mysterious salt desert of Atacama. In this context Harold Wilkins has queried whether, if it did end there, ‘Maybe when the mysterious tunnel was made, perhaps thousands of years ago, the climate was very different from today, and the landscape one of beauty and fertility?’). This would seem at last to be confirmation of the ancient tradition of an underground tunnel running beneath much of the continent of South America. Nor is the lady quite finished with her revelations:
Not far from this spot [the border of Peru and Bolivia] stand three separate peaks which form a curious triangle; they are included in the chain of the Andes. According to tradition the only practicable entrance to the corridor leading northward is in one of these peaks; but without the secret of its landmarks, a regiment of Titans might rend the rocks in vain in the attempt to find it. But even were someone to gain an entrance and find his way as far as the turning slab in the wall of the sepulchre, and attempt to blast it out, the superincumbent rocks are so disposed as to bury the tomb, its treasures,
and – as the mysterious Peruvian expressed it to us – ‘a thousand warriors’ in one common ruin. There is no other access to the Arica chamber but through the door in the mountain near Payaquina. Along the entire length of the corridor, from Bolivia to Lima and Cuzco, are smaller hiding places filled with treasures of gold and precious stone, the accumulations of many generations of Incas, the aggregate value of which is incalculable.
To any reader who might find himself sceptical of these remarkable claims, Madame Blavatsky offers what she trusts will be considered proof of her assertions: the existence of a map of the tunnel. (This is still extant, and is now housed in the Theosophical Society’s archives near the Adyar river, Madras, India.) Writing of this map in Isis Unveiled, she says:
We have in our possession an accurate plan of the tunnel, the sepulchre, and the doors, given to us at the time by the old Peruvian. If we had ever thought of profiting by the secret, it would have required the cooperation of the Peruvian and Bolivian governments on an extensive scale. To say nothing of physical obstacles, no one individual or small party could undertake such an exploration without encountering the army of smugglers and brigands with which the coast is infested; and which, in fact, includes nearly the whole population. The mere task of purifying the mephitic air of the tunnel, which had not been entered for centuries, would also be a serious one. There, however, the treasure lies, and there the tradition says it will lie till the last vestige of Spanish rule disappears from the whole of North and South America.
Madame Blavatsky also tells us of meeting an aged Peruvian priest – a Quichua Indian – who had actually travelled in the tunnel. A strange, embittered man, he had spent his life concealing his hatred of Peruvian officials and the Spanish conquerors. He told her:
‘I keep friends with them, these bandidos, and their Catholic missioners, for the sake of my own people. But I am as much a worshipper of the sun as if I had lived in the days of our murdered emperor, the Inca Atahualpha. Now, as a converted native and missionary, I once took a journey to Santa Cruz del Quiche (in Western Guatemala), and, when there, I went to see some of my people by a subterranean passage leading into a mysterious city behind the cordilleras. Herein, it is death for any white man to trespass!’
Madame Blavatsky confirms her own belief in the story, and cites the evidence offered by John Lloyd Stephens in his work about the secret tunnel near Santa Cruz del Quiche. And she adds: ‘Besides, a man who is about to die will rarely stop to invent idle stories.’
I have myself been ablp to trace further evidence to support the story of the tunnel – as well as it being the depository of a rich treasure. This evidence takes the form of an old parchment document written by a Spaniard named Felipe de Pomares sometime in the early years of the seventeenth century and now on file in the Cuzco archives. The document tells of a Spanish lady who had married a descendant of the murdered Inca emperor, and believing him to know where some of the great treasure was buried, plagued him to show it to her.
The lady, Dona Maria Esquivel, insisted that her husband, named Carlos Inca, was not keeping her in the style which befitted her rank, and she should be allowed to have some of the rich treasure to which Carlos was heir. Despite the unfortunate man’s insistence that the treasure should not be touched, Dona Maria persisted so vehemently that he finally gave in and agreed to take her, blindfolded, into the treasure chamber. This he had to do for fear of the ‘guardian’ who he said kept watch over the entrance to the tunnel.
And so, one night, under the cover of darkness, and still fearful that he might be caught and punished for his audacity, Carlos took Dona Maria into the secret tunnel. They walked for some distance until the lady was unbandaged to find herself in a treasure chamber of dazzling splendour. The place was full of gold and silver ingots as well as temple ornaments and life-size statues of long-dead Inca kings made of solid gold. Carlos Inca only allowed his grasping wife a handful of precious items before hastening her out, blindfolded as before. Later, when she began importuning him once again for further treasures from the secret chamber, he unceremoniously packed her off back to Spain.
This unedifying story of greed is apparently cited whenever a persistent rumour is mentioned that there still exists a secret band of ‘guardians’ keeping watch over the tunnel entrance beneath the fortress of Cuzco. As Harold Wilkins has written: ‘Carlos was the custodian of the secret, and from him it passed to a successor … Even today the secret of that vault may still remain locked in the breast of some descendant of the Inca.’ For three hundred years, he adds, nothing has occurred to eradicate the notion of that enormous treasure resting in a subterranean passage beneath the ancient Inca capital.
Recently, that indefatigable writer Erich Von Daniken has come up with some fascinating evidence of a lengthy tunnel in Peru’s neighbouring country, Ecuador. In his book, The Gold of the Gods (1972), he describes visiting an underground tunnel entered by a secret entrance near the town of Guala-quiza. It was part, he said, of a ‘gigantic system of tunnels, thousands of miles in length and built by unknown constructors at some unknown date, deep below the South American continent’. Von Daniken believes the tunnels in Ecuador to be linked with those in Peru and described the one in which he walked as having smooth, polished walls, with a flat ceiling looking almost as if it was covered with some kind of glaze. ‘Obviously,’ he says, ‘these passages did not originate from natural causes.’
Von Daniken says that a great deal of golden treasure has been found in this tunnel and that its entrance is guarded by a tribe of wild Indians – facts uncannily similar to those we have already noted in Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. He, apparently, only gained access because his guide, the man who discovered the tunnel, Juan Moricz, ‘had been accepted as a friend by the chieftain of the cave guardians’. These Indians seemingly entered the tunnels only once a year to offer ritual prayers to the ‘spirits of the underworld’.
As a result of his inspection, Von Daniken concluded that the tunnel system had been built thousands of years before the Inca kingdom came into being. ‘How,’ he asked, ‘and with what tools are the Incas supposed to have built hundreds of miles of passages deep under the earth? The Channel Tunnel has been planned by the engineers of our highly technical century for fifty years and they still have not decided which method should be used to build this comparatively minor tunnel.’ Von Daniken also correctly concludes that the system was known to the Inca rulers and was used by them for depositing and hiding their treasure from the rapacious Spanish Conquistadors. I shall be returning to discuss just how these amazing tunnels might have been engineered, and by whom, later in the book.
With this evidence from Ecuador, we have now examined all the major information concerning subterranean passages in South America – with one important exception, Brazil. From this evidence I believe it is possible to substantiate that there is, in fact, one gigantic tunnel stretching maybe as far as 2,500 miles from Mexico in the north to Peru and Bolivia in the south. (According to an old South American tradition there is even a name for this tunnel, ‘The Roadway of the Incas’.) And, as I shall show in the next chapter, there is a branch of the tunnel running eastwards beneath Brazil towards the Atlantic Ocean. Here, I hope to prove, the tunnel was once linked with the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
Later in the book I shall also be examining the evidence that this selfsame tunnel in South America is also linked to another similar network of passages in the United States with what is claimed to be a terminal point beneath New York City! And with this network in Continental America established, I hope to be able to show that it is just part of an even more gigantic system which links America with Europe and Asia – the ultimate destination of all these fabulous passageways being the subterranean world of Agharti.
* Harold Wilkins in his Mysteries of Ancient South America (1946) tells us a little more about these natives. He says that about every forty years rumours develop about the existence of men of a lost Mayan or Aztec race, and from time to t
ime strange, elusive Indians appear in the market places of lonely villages in this area. ‘They contact only with Indians,’ he says, ‘barter goods, and vanish as suddenly as they come, no Mexican or Guatemalan official being any the wiser. They are emissaries from a lost city of the ancient, civilized race that once governed old Mexico. No white man has ever penetrated the region of this wilderness, where, it is rumoured, these lost-world men live as did their fathers, erect or maintain the same majestic stone buildings, palaces and temples, large courts and lofty towers with high terraces of stone staircases, and are still carving in stone the mysterious hieroglyphics that no modern scholar can decipher in the ruins of old Yucatan.’
* Of the character of the Incas, the Spanish Conquistador and historian, Don Mancio Serra de Leguisamo, wrote in his Comentarios de los Yncas (1589): ‘The Inca Peruvians were so free from crimes and excesses, the men as well as the women, that the Indian who had 100,000 pesos of gold and silver in his house, left it open, merely placing a small stick across the door as a sign that the master was out, and no one could enter or take anything that was inside. When they found we put locks and keys on our doors, they supposed it was for fear of them that they might not kill us, not because they believed that anyone would steal the property of another. So, when they found we had thieves among us and men who sought to make their daughters commit sin, they despised us.’
BRAZIL – AND THE ATLANTIS CONNECTION
Brazil is the fourth largest country in the world, occupying nearly half the total area of South America. Its great capital city, Brasilia, and two magnificent ports of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are internationally famous and present an air of sophistication and culture that has led some people to suggest that ultimately the nation will become one of the world’s leading nations.
The Lost World of Agharti- the Mystery of Vril Power Page 14
