The wild tribes of Africa consider no girl beautiful unless she is
abnormally fat. Hence their young girls are fed on milk and fattening
foods, and are not permitted to exercise. This forced fattening is not
only a necessary preparation for marriage--it is also good business for
a girl’s parents. When a girl marries, the bridegroom pays her parents
for her, and the amount he pays is based on the degree of plumpness of
the bride whom they have fattened for him.
_An Odd, Fantastic Little Story
of the Stone Age_
Nimba, the
Cave Girl
_By_ R. T. M. Scott
Many thousands of years ago, when the poles of the earth were its
pleasant spots and when the tropics were too hot for human life, Nimba
grew to her full height and was still a maid.
Many had been her suitors, but, from the time she had pulled down her
first wild animal, she had lived much apart from others of her kind
and had become known as a mighty traveler and hunter. She could run a
hundred miles in one day over the worst kind of country, and she had
matched her brains successfully against the most wonderful of animal
cunning. Unaided, she could support herself, and she did not want a
mate--at least, not yet.
Somewhere, not far south of what is now called James Bay, is a
beautiful lake lying between steep-sloping, wood-covered hills. At one
end of this lake a great boulder once stood, heaving its huge mass a
full hundred feet above the water. At its back the steep hillside gave
access to its summit. At its front the water rippled or dashed against
one hundred feet of straight wall.
Yet not quite perfect was this wall. In its very center, and slightly
overhanging the lake, was a tiny cave, an irregular cavity large enough
to shelter two or three people. Fifty feet above the water and fifty
feet below the top of the great rock, this natural shelter against
rain or enemy seemed inaccessible to anything without wings. But the
skin of a long-haired animal was stretched to dry against the back of
this little cave--pegged to the cracks and crannies by means of great
thorns. Scattered here and there were bleached bones--relics of past
meals eaten by Nimba.
* * * * *
It was a hot afternoon, and the sun was beating the earth in its usual
relentless fury. To the south the great cloud-masses of steam were
rising and tumbling upon themselves in rain, only to revaporize and
rise again.
The air was still with a breathless quiet, which presaged continued
fine weather and little danger of the hot humidity of the south being
blown northward. On the eastern horizon a mighty mountain belched its
head off and sent a column of fire into the sky that rivaled the glare
of the sun.
Suddenly the bushes parted behind the great rock-sentinel of the lake.
Nimba sprang out and ran to the highest vantage point. There she stood,
motionless, gazing at the burning mountain. Fire did not frighten her
as it did the creatures which ran on four legs; rather it attracted her.
She stood long, viewing the new magnificence of the eastern horizon,
her coppery-tanned skin glistening in the sun and her firm young
breasts rising and falling as if they, too, saw and wondered in dreamy
contemplation. Lithe were her legs and arms, and slender her waist,
with hips full big but boy-like in their taper. Her hair was bound
with little tendrils into a cue that reached below her waist and then
was doubled to keep it off the ground. Sunburned, its hue was a golden
glory. A deep scar marked her face, but this only added to its barbaric
beauty.
Of a sudden, she bent as in the act of listening and then leaped back
into the bushes, only to return with a small animal she had killed,
and dragging behind her a stout creeper of great length. Fastening one
end of the creeper to a jutting rock, she threw the other end over
the face of the great boulder and, holding with one hand the animal’s
leg, lowered herself to the cave in the wall with all the agility of a
monkey.
Scarcely had she entered her tiny abode before she noticed that her
creeper ladder was being violently agitated from above. She leaned far
out from her cave in a perilous manner and saw descending toward her a
long pair of hairy legs followed by the rest of a man.
Picking up a stout club from the back of her cave, Nimba waited until
the legs came within reach and then caught the man a blow on his thigh
that caused him to yell lustily and to ascend a few feet with great
rapidity.
He did not entirely retreat, however, but, turning around like a
caterpillar on a thread, again descended, this time head first in order
to keep a bright outlook.
* * * * *
Nimba now saw the man’s face, and she disliked it more than his legs.
Her small features convulsed with rage, and she spat at him and beat
the wall with her club in a frenzy. She knew him well.
He was Oomba, one of the strong and cruel men of her tribe. When he was
fifteen he had killed his grandfather for a stoneheaded club. He had
caught the old man unawares, which act of caution had been construed
as timidity so that he had few friends until he became too strong to
withstand.
When Oomba had descended until his face was within twelve inches
beyond the reach of the girl’s club, he hung there, gloating over her
with greedy, lustful eyes. For half an hour he hung, face downward,
sensuously intoning to the infuriated girl.
“With me hunt! With me eat! With me sleep!”
At the end of half an hour Nimba was still spitting at him and still
clubbing the wall with unabated energy.
“Oomba go! Oomba go! Me you will not touch!” she screamed at intervals.
Finally Oomba climbed back to the top of the rock--but he did not give
up. He pulled the great creeper up after him. He would trap the little
spit-cat, he thought, and so tame her.
But he did not know Nimba.
As soon as the object of her hatred became lost to sight Nimba calmed
herself. When she saw her rope of escape withdrawn she waited for some
time in silence. Then she stepped to the edge of her cave home--and
her body flashed forward through the sunlit air like a gleam of gold.
For fifty feet the gleam curved, then struck the water silently like a
knife. Fifteen yards from where she struck, Nimba’s face appeared above
the surface glancing upward toward the top of the rock.
Oomba peering over the rock, witnessed Nimba’s mighty dive. For a
moment he scowled at her before dashing into the bushes just as Nimba
swam into shallow water.
* * * * *
Nimba rose near the shore, her club dripping in her hand. She bounded
along the rough shore line, keeping at least ankle deep in the water.
Rounding a small, wooded point, she came to an overhanging bough upon
which she climbed.
Here she broke two or three small branches and sped on into the next
tree and the next, throwing herself from limb to limb and breaking
small branches in her flight. Finally she broke a very small branch and
leaped into a densely foliaged tree without so much as crushing a leaf.
And here she ensconced herself from sight.
Her trap was laid. She clung to a limb as silent and watchful as any
animal of prey, her long club between her young body and the bark on
which she lay.
The minutes passed while Nimba’s dark eyes kept constant watch through
the green leaves that formed her mask. Abruptly, as she watched, a
young man stepped out and stood beneath her tree. Strong and straight
was he. His eyes were bright and the hair on his face was short and
soft. Not a leaf rustled as Nimba watched with growing interest. Below
her the man stood quietly scenting the air.
Suddenly a twig snapped, and the young man turned like a flash, only
to receive Oomba’s mighty club full on the head. So silently had Oomba
approached that the listening Nimba had not detected the slightest
sound. Now he stood looking down at his victim and contemptuously
turning the bleeding head from side to side with his foot, quite
unconscious of any lurking danger.
Clinging only by her feet from the bough upon which she had been lying,
Nimba reached down and swung her club with vicious force upon the side
of Oomba’s head. Beside his own victim he fell, while Nimba dropped
lightly to the ground, turning in the air like a cat and landing upon
her feet.
Quickly she dragged Oomba to one side, where two rocks abutted, and
wedged his head vicelike between them. Then she beat it with her club
until it had no shape at all and the leaves and little green things
nearby were spattered with blood. There was no doubt about it: Oomba
was dead.
* * * * *
Great satisfaction showed on Nimba’s face when her bloody task was done.
She washed the blood from her body in the lake and returned to examine
the young man who had first been struck down. Apparently satisfied
with his condition, she picked him up and, trailing her bloody club,
returned to her great rock at the head of the lake. Here she found the
creeper where Oomba had left it and experienced little difficulty in
climbing down to the privacy of her cave with the senseless man under
one arm.
Two trips she made for water, which was carried in a gourd and stored
in a hollow in the cave floor. This done, Nimba washed the young man’s
face, wet his hair and propped him in a corner to recover his senses.
Her work of mercy finished, Nimba turned her attention to the animal
which she had killed earlier in the day. Dragging it from its corner,
she placed both feet upon the body while she tore off a leg with one
furious wrench. As the sun was setting and the deep purple of the hills
became bordered with gold, Nimba commenced the one meal of the day to
which she was accustomed. It would soon be time to sleep.
Almost as the last shaft of sunlight shot over the distant hills
consciousness returned to the young man as he sat propped in the corner
of the cave. Slowly he looked about him. He rose to his feet and walked
to the edge of the cave, where he gazed down at the lake and examined
the dangling creeper down which he had been carried.
Finally the young man approached Nimba, who had stopped eating and was
silently watching him, her mouth bloody from her raw repast. He dragged
the animal from her side and shoved her into a corner, where a jagged
stone cut her shoulder, causing the blood to flow. Having eaten his
fill, the man lay down to sleep.
The great moon rose and silvered the sleeping lake. A night-bird
screeched as it swept by the entrance to the cave and Nimba crept from
her corner. Still bleeding, she stretched herself beside the sleeping
man. Her body touched his and some blood from her shoulder mingled with
his in a tiny pool.
Below them, in the water, a reptile splashed its way among the reeds.
Nimba and her master slept.
Nimba had taken her mate.
_What Comes After Death?_
_An Anonymous Author Gives a
Startling Answer in_
_The_
YOUNG MAN
_who_
WANTED TO
DIE
_By ? ? ?_