THE PICTURE IN THE CAVE
We did not reach the cave too soon, for as the boys scrambled into it
after us the hail began to come down in earnest, and you fellows know,
or at any rate have heard, what African hail can be, especially among
the mountains of the Berg. I have known it to go through sheets of
galvanized iron like rifle bullets, and really I believe that some of
the stones which fell on this occasion would have pierced two of them
put together, for they were as big as flints and jagged at that. If
anybody had been caught in that particular storm on the open veldt
without a wagon to creep under or a saddle to put over his head, I
doubt whether he would have lived to see a clear sky again.
The driver, who was already almost weeping with distress over the loss
of Kaptein and Deutchmann, as the two pole oxen were named, grew almost
crazed because he thought that the hail would kill the others, and
actually wanted to run out into it with the wild idea of herding them
into some shelter. I told him to sit still and not be a fool, since we
could do nothing to help them. Hans, who had a habit of growing
religious when there was lightning about, remarked sententiously that
he had no doubt that the “Great-Great” in the sky would look after
the cattle since my Reverend Father (who had converted him to the
peculiar faith, or mixture of faiths, which, with Hans, passed for
Christianity) had told him that the cattle on a thousand hills were His
especial property, and, here in the Berg, were they not among the
thousand hills? The Zulu driver who had not “found religion,” but
was just a raw savage, replied with point that if that were so the
“Great-Great” might have protected Kaptein and Deutchmann, which He
had clearly neglected to do. Then, after the fashion of some furious
woman, by way of relieving his nerves, he fell to abusing Hans, whom he
called “a yellow jackal,” adding that the tail of the worst of the
oxen was of more value than his whole body, and that he wished his
worthless skin were catching the hailstones instead of their
inestimable hides.
These nasty remarks about his personal appearance irritated Hans, who
drew up his lips as does an angry dog, and replied in suitable
language, which involved reflections upon that Zulu’s family, and
especially on his mother. In short, had I not intervened there would
have been a very pretty row that might have ended in a blow from a
kerry or a knife thrust. This, however, I did with vigour, saying that
he who spoke another word should be kicked out of the cave to keep
company with the hail and the lightning, after which peace was
restored.
That storm went on for a long while, for after it had seemed to go away
it returned again, travelling in a circle as such tempests sometimes
do, and when the hail was finished, it was followed by torrential rain.
The result was that by the time the thunder had ceased to roar and echo
among the mountain-tops darkness was at hand, so it became evident that
we must stop where we were for the night, especially as the boys, who
had gone out to look for the oxen, reported that they could not find
them. This was not pleasant, as the cave was uncommonly cold and the
wagon was too soaked with the rain to sleep in.
Here, however, once more Hans’s memory came in useful. Having borrowed
my matches, he crept off down the cave and presently returned, dragging
a quantity of wood after him, dusty and worm-eaten-looking wood, but
dry and very suitable for firing.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“Baas,” he replied, “when I lived in this place with the
Bushmen, long before those black children” (this insult referred to the
driver and the voorlooper, Mavoon and Induka by name) “were begotten of
their unknown fathers, I hid away a great stock of wood for the winter,
or in case I should ever come back here, and there it is still, covered
with stones and dust. The ants that run about the ground do the same
thing, Baas, that their children may have food when they are dead. So
now if those Kaffirs will help me to get the wood we may have a good
fire and be warm.”
Marvelling at the little Hottentot’s foresight that was bred into his
blood by the necessities of a hundred generations of his forefathers, I
bade the others to accompany him to the cache, which they did,
glowering, with the result that presently we had a glorious fire. Then
I fetched some food, for luckily I had killed a Duiker buck that
morning, the flesh of which we toasted on the embers, and with it a
bottle of Square-face from the wagon, so that soon we were eating a
splendid dinner. I know that there are many who do not approve of
giving spirits to natives, but for my part I have found that when they
are chilled and tired a “tot” does them no harm and wonderfully
improves their tempers. The trouble was to prevent Hans from getting
more than one, to do which I made a bedfellow of that bottle of
Square-face.
When we were filled I lit my pipe and began to talk with Hans, whom the
grog had made loquacious and therefore interesting. He asked me how old
the cave was, and I told him that it was as old as the mountains of the
Berg. He answered that he had thought so because there were footprints
stamped in the rock floor farther down it, and turned to stone, which
were not made by any beasts that he had ever heard of or seen, which
footprints he would show me on the morrow if I cared to look at them.
Further, that there were queer bones lying about, also turned to stone,
that he thought must have belonged to giants. He believed that he could
find some of these bones when the sun shone into the cave in the early
morning.
Then I explained to Hans and the Kaffirs how once, thousands of
thousands of years ago, before there were any men in the world, great
creatures had lived there, huge elephants and reptiles as large as a
hundred crocodiles made into one, and, as I had been told, enormous
apes, much bigger than any gorilla. They were very interested, and Hans
said that it was quite true about the apes, since he had seen a picture
of one of them, or of a giant that looked like an ape.
“Where?” I asked. “In a book?”
“No, Baas, here in this cave. The Bushmen made it ten thousand years
ago.” By which he meant at some indefinite time in the past.
Now I bethought me of a fabulous creature called the _Ngoloko_ which
was said to inhabit an undefined area of swamps on the East Coast and
elsewhere. This animal, in which, I may add, I did not in the least
believe, for I set it down as a native bogey, was supposed to be at
least eight feet high, to be covered with gray hair and to have a claw
in the place of toes. My chief authority for it was a strange old
Portuguese hunter whom I had once known, who swore that he had seen its
footprints in the mud, also that it had killed one of his men and
twisted the head off his body. I asked Hans if he had ever heard of it.
He replied that he had, under another name, that of _Milhoy,_ I think,
but that the devil painted in the cave was larger than that.
Now I thought that he was pitching me a yarn, as natives will, and said
that if so he had better show me the picture forthwith.
“Best wait until the sun shines in the morning, Baas,” he replied,
“for then the light will be good. Also this devil is not nice to look
at at night.”
“Show it me,” I repeated with asperity; “we have lanterns
from the wagon.”
So, somewhat unwillingly, Hans led the way up the cave for fifty paces
or more, for the place was very big, he carrying one lantern and I
another, while the two Zulus followed with candles in their hands. As
we went I saw that on the walls there were many Bushmen paintings, also
one or two of the carvings of this strange people. Some of these
paintings seemed quite fresh, while others were faded or perhaps the
ochre used by the primitive artist had flaked off. They were of the
usual character, drawings of elands and other buck being hunted by men
who shot at them with arrows; also of elephants and a lion charging at
some spearmen.
One, however, which oddly enough was the best preserved of any of the
collection, excited me enormously. It represented men whose faces were
painted white and who seemed to wear a kind of armour and queer pointed
caps upon their heads, of the sort that I believe are known as
Phrygian, attacking a native kraal of which the reed fence was clearly
indicated, as were the round huts behind. Moreover, to the left some of
these men were dragging away women to what from a series of wavy lines,
looked like a rude representation of the sea.
I stared and gasped, for surely here before me was a picture of
Phœnicians carrying out one of their women-hunting raids, as
ancient writers tell us it was their habit to do. And if so, that
picture must have been painted by a Bushman who lived at least two
thousand years ago, and possibly more. The thing was amazing. Hans,
however, did not seem to be interested, but pushed on as though to
finish a disagreeable task, and I was obliged to follow him, fearing
lest I should be lost in the recesses of that vast cave.
Presently he came to a crevice in the side of the cavern which I should
have passed unnoticed, as it was exactly like many others.
“Here is the place, Baas,” he said, “just as it used to be.
Now follow me and be careful where you step, for there are cracks in
the floor.”
So I squeezed myself into the opening where, although I am not very
large, there was barely room for me to pass. Within its lips was a
narrow tunnel, either cut out by water or formed by the rush of
explosive gases hundreds of thousands of years ago—I think the latter,
as the roof, which was not more than eight or nine feet from the floor,
had sharp points and roughnesses that showed no water-wear. But as I
have not the faintest idea how these great African caves were formed, I
will not attempt to discuss the matter. This floor, however, was quite
smooth, as though for many generations it had been worn by the feet of
men, which no doubt was the case.
When we had crept ten or twelve paces down the tunnel, Hans called to
me to stand quite still—not to move on any account. I obeyed him,
wondering, and by the light of my lantern saw him lift his own, which
had a loop of hide fastened through the tin eye at the top of it for
convenience in hanging it up in the wagon, and set it, or rather the
hide loop, round his neck, so that it hung upon his back. Then he
flattened himself against the side of the cavern with his face to the
wall as though he did not wish to see what was behind him, and
cautiously crept forward with sidelong steps, gripping the roughnesses
in the rock with his hands. When he had gone some twenty or thirty feet
in this crab-like fashion, he turned and said,
“Now, Baas, you must do as I did.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Hold down the lantern and you will see, Baas.”
I did so, and perceived that a pace or two farther on there was a great
chasm in the floor of the tunnel of unknown depth, since the lamplight
did not penetrate to its bottom. Also I noted that the ledge at the
side that formed the bridge by which Hans had passed, was nowhere more
than twelve inches, and in some places less than six inches wide.
“Is it deep?” I asked.
By way of answer Hans found a bit of broken rock and threw it into the
gulf. I listened, and it was quite a long while before I heard it
strike below.
“I told the Baas,” said Hans in a superior tone, “that he had
better wait until to-morrow when some light comes down this hole, but
the Baas would not listen to me and doubtless he knows best. Now would
the Baas like to go back to bed, as I think wisest, and return
to-morrow?”
If the truth were known there was nothing that I should have liked
better, for the place was detestable. But I was in such a rage with
Hans for playing me this trick that even if I thought that I was going
to break my neck I would not give him the pleasure of mocking me in his
sly way.
“No,” I answered quietly, “I will go to bed when I have seen
this picture you talk about, and not before.”
Now Hans grew alarmed and begged me in good earnest not to try to cross
the gulf, which reminded me vaguely of the parable of Abraham and Dives
in the Bible, with myself playing the part of Dives, except that I was
not thirsty, and Hans did not in any way resemble Abraham.
“I see how it is,” I said, “there is not any picture and you
are simply playing one of your monkey tricks on me. Well, I’m coming to
look, and if I find you have been telling lies I’ll make you sorry for
yourself.”
“The picture is there or was when I was young,” answered Hans
sullenly, “and for the rest, the Baas knows best. If he breaks every
bone in his body presently, don’t let him blame me, and I pray that he
will tell the truth, all of it, to his Reverend Father in the sky who
left him in my charge, saying that Hans begged him not to come but that
because of his evil temper he would not listen. Meanwhile, the Baas had
better take off his boots, since the feet of those Bushmen whose spooks
I feel all about me have made the ledge very slippery.”
In silence I sat down and removed my boots, thinking to myself that I
would gladly give all my savings that were on deposit in the bank at
Durban, to be spared this ordeal. What a strange thing is the white
man’s pride, especially if he be of the Anglo-Saxon breed, or what
passes by that name. There was no need for me to take this risk, yet,
rather than be secretly mocked at by Hans and those Kaffirs, here I was
about to do so just for pride’s sake. In my heart I cursed Hans and the
cave and the hole and the picture and the thunderstorm that brought me
there, and everything else I could remember. Then, as it had no strap
like that of Hans, although it smelt horribly, I took the tin loop of
my lantern in my teeth because it seemed the only thing to do, put up a
silent but most earnest prayer, and started as though I liked the job.
To tell the truth, I remember little of that journey except that it
seemed to take about three hours instead of under a minute, and the
voices of woe and lamentation from the two Zulus behind, who insisted
upon bidding me a tender farewell as I proceeded, amidst other
demonstrations of affection, calling me their father and their mother
for four generations.
Somehow I wriggled myself along that accursed ridge, shoving my stomach
as hard as I could against the wall of the passage as though this organ
possessed some prehensile quality, and groping for knobs of rock on
which I broke two of my nails. However, I did get over all right,
although just towards the end one of my feet slipped and I opened my
mouth to say something, with the result that the lantern fell into the
abyss, taking with it a loose front tooth. But Hans stretched out his
skinny hand, and, meaning to catch me by the coat collar, got hold of
my left ear, and, thus painfully supported, I came to firm ground and
cursed him into heaps. Although some might have thought my language
pointed, he did not resent it in the least, being too delighted at my
safe arrival.
“Never mind the tooth, Baas, he said. It is best that it should be gone
without knowing it, as it were, because you see you can now eat crusts
and hard biltong again, which you have not been able to do for months.
The lantern, however, is another matter, though perhaps we can get a
new one at Pretoria or wherever we go.”
Recovering myself, I peered over the edge of the abyss. There, far, far
below, I saw my lantern, which was of a sort that burns oil, flaring
upon a bed of something white, for the container had burst and all the
oil was on fire.
“What is that white stuff down there?” I asked. “Lime?”
“No, Baas, it is the broken bones of men. Once when I was young, with
the help of the Bushmen, I let myself down by a rope that we twisted
out of rushes and buckskins, just to look, Baas. There is another cave
underneath this one, Baas, but I didn’t go into it because I was
frightened.”
“And how did all those bones come there, Hans? Why, there must be
hundreds of them!”
“Yes, Baas, many hundreds, and they came this way. Since the beginning
of the world the Bushmen lived in this cave and set a trap here by
laying branches over the hole and covering them with dust so that they
looked like rock, just as one makes a game pit, Baas—yes, they did this
until the last of them were killed not so long ago by the Boers and
Zulus, whose sheep and beasts they stole. Then when their enemies
attacked them, which was often, for it has always been right to kill
Bushmen—they would run down the cave and into the cleft and creep along
the narrow edge of rock, which they could do with their eyes shut. But
the silly Kaffirs, or whoever it might be, running after them to kill
them would fall through the branches and get killed themselves. They
must have done this quite often, Baas, since there are such a lot of
their skulls down there, many of them quite black with age and turned
to stone.”
“One might have thought that the Kaffirs would have grown wiser,
Hans.”
“Yes, Baas, but the dead keep their wisdom to themselves, for I believe
that when all the attackers were in the passage, then other Bushmen,
who had been hiding in the cave, came up behind and shot them with
poisoned arrows and drove them on into the hole so that none went back;
indeed, the Bushmen told me that this used to be their fathers’ plan.
Also, if any did escape, in a generation or two all was forgotten, and
the same thing happened again because, Baas, there are always plenty of
fools in the world and the fool who comes after is just as big as the
fool who went before. Death spills the water of wisdom upon the sand,
Baas, and sand is thirsty stuff that soon grows dry again. If it were
not so, Baas, men would soon stop falling in love with women, and yet
even great ones—like you, Baas—fall in love.”
Having delivered this thrust, in order to prevent the possibility of
answer Hans began to chat with the driver and the voorlooper on the
other side of the gulf.
“Be quick and come over, you brave Zulus there,” he said,
“for you are keeping your Chief waiting and me also.”
The Zulus, holding their candles forward, peered into the pit below.
“_Ow!_” said one of them, “are we bats that we can fly
over a hole like that or baboons that we can climb on a shelf no wider
than a spear, or flies that we can walk upon a wall? _Ow!_ we are not
coming, we will wait here. That road is only for yellow monkeys like
you or for those who have the white man’s magic like the Inkoos
Macumazahn.”
“No,” replied Hans reflectively, “you are none of these
creatures which are all of them good in their way. You are just a
couple of low-born Kaffir cowards, black skins blown up to look like
men. I, the ‘yellow jackal’ can walk the gulf, and the Baas can
walk the gulf, but you, Windbags, cannot even float over it for fear
lest you should burst in the middle. Well, Windbags, float back to the
wagon and fetch the coil of small rope that is in the _voorkissie,_ for
we may want it.”
One of them replied in a humbled voice that they did not take orders
from him, a Hottentot, whereon I said,
“Go and fetch the rope and return at once.”
So they went with a dejected air, for Hans’s winged words had gone
home, and again they learned that at the end he always got the best of
a quarrel. The truth is that they were as brave as men can be, but no
Zulu is any good underground and least of all in the dark in a place
that he thinks haunted.
“Now, Baas,” said Hans, “we will go and look at the
picture—that is, unless you are quite sure I am lying and that there is
no picture, in which case it is not worth while to take the trouble,
and you had better sit here and cut your broken nails until Mavoon and
Induka come back with the rope.”
“Oh, get on, you poisonous little vermin!” I said, exasperated by
his jeers, emphasizing my words with a tremendous kick.
Here, however, I made a great mistake, since I had forgotten that at
the moment I lacked boots, and either Hans carried a collection of hard
articles in the seat of his filthy trousers or his posterior was of a
singularly stonelike nature. In short, I hurt my toes most abominably
and him not at all.
“Ah, Baas,” said Hans with a sweet smile, “you should
remember what your Reverend Father taught me: always to put on your
boots before you kick against the thorn pricks. I have a gimlet and
some nails in my pistol pocket, Baas, that I was using this morning to
mend that box of yours.”
Then he bolted incontinently lest I should experiment on his head and
see if there were nails in that also, and as he had the only lantern, I
was obliged to limp, or rather to hop, after him.
The passage, of which the floor was still worn smooth by thousands of
dead feet, went on straight for eight or ten paces and then bent to the
right. When we came to this elbow in it I saw a light ahead of me which
I could not understand till presently I found myself standing in a kind
of pit or funnel—it may have measured some thirty feet across—that
rose from the level at which we stood, right through the strata to the
mountain-side eighty or a hundred feet above us. What had formed it
thus I cannot conceive, but there it was—a funnel, as I have said, in
shape exactly like those that are used when beer is poured into barrels
or port wine into a decanter, the place on which we were, being, of
course, its narrower end. The light that I had seen came, therefore,
from the sky, which, now that the tempest had passed away, was
clean-washed and beautiful, sown with stars also, for at the moment a
dense black cloud remaining from the storm hid the moon, now just past
its full.
For a little way, perhaps five-and-twenty feet, the sides of this
tunnel were almost sheer, after which they sloped outwards steeply to
the mouth of the pit in the mountain flank. One other peculiarity I
noticed—namely, that on the western face of the tunnel which, as it
chanced, was in front of us as we stood, just where it began to expand,
projected a sloping ridge of rock like to the roof of a lean-to shed,
which ridge ran right across this face.
“Well, Hans,” I said, when I had inspected this strange natural
cavity, “where is your picture? I don’t see it.”
“_Wacht een beetje_” (that is, “Wait a bit”),
“Baas. The moon is climbing up that cloud; presently she will get to
the top of it and then you will see the picture, unless someone has
rubbed it out since I was young.”
I turned to look at the cloud and to witness a sight of which I never
have grown tired: the uprising of the glorious African moon out of her
secret halls of blackness. Already silver rays of light were shooting
across the vastness of the firmament, causing the stars to pale. Then
suddenly her bent edge appeared and with extraordinary swiftness grew
and grew till the whole splendid orb emerged from a bed of inky vapour
and for a while rested on its marge, perfect, wonderful! In an instant
our hole was filled with light so strong and clear that by it I could
have read a letter.
For a few moments I stood thrilled with the beauty of the scene, and
forgetting all else in its contemplation, till Hans said with a hoarse
cackle,
“Now turn round, Baas, and look at the pretty picture.”
I did so, and followed the line of his outstretched hand, which pointed
to that face of the rock with the pent roof that looked towards the
east. Next second—my friends, I am not exaggerating—I nearly fell
backwards. Have any of you fellows ever had a nightmare in which you
dreamed you were in hell and suddenly met the devil
tête-à-tête, all by your little selves? At any rate,
I have, and there in front of me was the devil, only much worse than
fond fancy can paint him even with the brush of the acutest
indigestion.
Imagine a monster double life size—that is to say, eleven or twelve
feet high—brilliantly portrayed in the best ochres of which these
Bushmen have always had the secret, namely, white, red, black, and
yellow, and with eyes formed apparently of polished lumps of rock
crystal. Imagine this thing as a huge ape to which the biggest gorilla
would be but a child, and yet not an ape but a man, and yet not a man,
but a fiend.
It was covered with hair like an ape, long gray hair that grew in
tufts. It had a great red, bushy beard like a man; its limbs were
tremendous, the arms being of abnormal length like to the arms of a
gorilla, but, mark this, it had no fingers, only a great claw where the
thumb should be. The rest of the hand was all grown together into one
piece like a duck’s foot, although what should have been the finger
part was flexible and could grip like fingers, as shall be seen.
At least, that is what the picture suggested, though it occurred to me
afterwards that it might represent the creature as wearing fingerless
gloves such as men in this country use when cutting fences. The feet
however, which were certainly shown as bare, were the same; I mean that
there were no toes, only one terrible claw where the big toe should be.
The carcass was enormous; supposing it to have been drawn from life,
the original, I should guess, would have weighed at least thirty stone;
the chest was vast, indicating gigantic strength, and the paunch
beneath wrinkled and protuberant. But—and here came one of the human
touches—about its middle the thing wore a moocha or, rather, a hide
tied round it by the leg skins, which hide seemed to have been dressed.
So much for the body. Now for the head and face.
These I know not how to describe, but I will try. The neck was as that
of a bull, and perched horribly on the top of it was a quite small
head, which—notwithstanding the great red beard whereof I have spoken
that grew upon the chin, and a wide mouth from whose upper jaw
projected yellow tushes like to those of a baboon that hung over the
lower lip—was curiously feminine in appearance; indeed, that of an old,
old she-devil with an aquiline nose. The brow, however, was
disproportionate to the rest of the face, being prominent, massive, and
not unintellectual, while set deep in it and unnaturally far apart were
those awful glaring crystal eyes.
That was not all, for the creature seemed to be laughing cruelly, and
the drawing showed why it laughed. One of its feet was set upon the
body of a man into which the great claw was driven deep. One of its
hands held the head of the man, that evidently it had just twisted from
the body. The other hand grasped by the hair a living naked girl badly
drawn, as though this detail had not interested the artist, whom
apparently it was about to drag away.
“Isn’t it a pretty picture, Baas?” sniggered Hans. “Now
the Baas will not say that I tell lies, no, not for quite a week.”