Tall reeds, the thickness of a walking-stick, grew inside, the road
was strewed with white pebbles, and so wide--four hundred yards--that
they could see their way tolerably well while passing through it. The
rocks looked as if they had been planed by artificial means. Water never
came through from the river overhead; it was procured by digging wells.
Manua added that the people of Wambweh take shelter in this tunnel, and
live there with their families and cattle, when molested by the Watuta,
a warlike race, descended from the Zooloo Kafirs.
But it is interesting to find in this book of Votan, however little
reliance we may place in its dates or details, evidence that there was
actual intercourse between the Old World and the New in remote ages.
Humboldt remarks:
"We have fixed the special attention of our readers upon this Votan, or
Wodan, an American who appears of the same family with the Wods or Odins
of the Goths and of the people of Celtic origin. Since, according to the
learned researches of Sir William Jones, Odin and Buddha are probably
the same person, it is curious to see the names of Bondvar, Wodansday,
and Votan designating in India, Scandinavia, and in Mexico the day of a
brief period.
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