Cave dweller

“ The horrible noise made by thousands of these birds in the dark recesses of the cavern can be compared only to the wild shrieks of the sea-mews round a solitary bird mountain, or to the deafening uproar of the crows when assembled in vast flocks in the dark fir-forests of the North. The clamour increases on advancing deeper into the cave, the birds being disturbed by the torch-light; and as those nestling in the side avenues of the cave begin to utter their mournful cries when the first sink into silence, it seems as if their troops were alternately complaining to each other of the intruders. ”

“ The instinct of the cave-dweller is deeply implanted in the hearts of boys, and every year we have a list of fatal accidents caused by the little fellows digging caves in sand-banks or banks of gravel which frequently fall in and bury the little troglodytes, but they will be safe in a barabara. The shack is ventilated by a chimney hole in the roof as shown by Fig. ”

“ Yet all had to be done by touch, in that abode of darkness and black, un-Christian deeds.
It was silent and eerie beyond telling in the cave. We heard the water lapping further and further from us as it retreated down the long passage. Now and then we seemed to catch a gliff of the noise of human voices. But again, when we listened, it seemed naught but the wind blowing every way through the passages and halls of the cave, or the echoed wing-beatings of the uncanny things that battened in the roofs and crevices of this murtherous cavern, unfathomed, unsounded, and obscure. ”

“ Very different, in a moment, was the condition when the hunters entered the forest and, extended in line, began their advance toward the huge objects of their search. The cave man, almost a wild beast himself in some of his ways, had, on occasion, a footfall as light as that of any animal of the time. The twig scarcely crackled and the leaf scarcely rustled beneath his tread, and when the long line entered the wood the silence of death fell there, for the hunters made no sound, and what slight sound the woodland had before--the clatter of the woodpeckers and jays--was hushed by their advance. ”

“ If I had been a desert castaway, lying down to die beside some parched human skeleton, I could not better have testified to my sense of the sorrow that makes us kin than I did now in my changed emotions.
Yet, indeed, the scene was a very awful one. Near the whole of the further side of the crypt had collapsed, making of the place a huge cave-like mouth stuck with blackened splinters of teeth, and gorged to the throttle with a litter of human remains. They lay scattered all over the vast jaw of it—chewed, dismembered, scarce one to be identified in its entirety. ”

“ Morning found us more dead than alive, with blanched faces and trembling lips. We were not reassured on hearing, from a man who took refuge in the cave, that a mortar shell in falling would not consider the thickness of earth above us a circumstance.
Some of the ladies, more courageous by daylight, asked him what he was in there for, if that was the case. He was silenced for an hour, when he left. As the day wore on, and we were still preserved, though the shells came as ever, we were somewhat encouraged. ”

“ No longer accessible, except perhaps to the foxes above noticed, this shelter, and its strange sepulture, were slowly and completely hidden from sight by atmospheric degradation bringing down the earthy covering, which, by its thickness, alone proves the great antiquity of the burial in the cave. ”

“ A desolate stillness reigns here; no sound reaches us, either of labor or the steps of passing workmen. A cold stream of water trickles from a cleft rock behind us; we bathe our foreheads in it, and betake ourselves to the ladder again.
From our next resting-place we proceed through a gallery, an exhausted vein, kept open as a passage from one shaft to another. As we turn a corner, we seem to plunge into a rocky cavern; our feet tread on roughly imbedded rocks; the sides of the cave jut out in refuse boulders,—harsh, dark-colored, ashen ”

“ Occasionally death comes when a severe storm is raging outside the cave. Rather than face the storm the men of a burial party sometimes seal a body in an empty house or bury it in the trash room in the rear of the cave. The cave roof is too low for houses in that space so the long, low room is used as a trash room and turkey roost. When a body is buried there it is surrounded by perfectly dry materials such as ashes, dust, corn cobs, corn tassels and turkey droppings. The chill of winter prevents decay and the body begins to dry out. ”

“ We had found the little cave in which we were now concealed, and in a way intrenched, for none could force the narrow entrance; had found good hunting, and so, gloomily but healthily enough, we abode together, planning, it seemed vainly, some scheme of retribution. We chafed and raged, thus helpless, like the great wild elk with antlers caught in the thicket, or the huge bear sometimes imprisoned in a pitfall of the rocks. The life we led was trying; in some unguarded moment we might be stolen upon and slain by Wolf and his followers, and, besides, our little cave was colder than the other. ”

“ The caves were plainly becoming a necessity, as some persons had been killed on the street by fragments of shells. The room that I had so lately slept in had been struck by a fragment of a shell during the first night, and a large hole made in the ceiling. I shall never forget my extreme fear during the night, and my utter hopelessness of ever seeing the morning light. Terror stricken, we remained crouched in the cave, while shell after shell followed each other in quick succession. ”

“ The cave must, therefore, be viewed as a place of sepulture for a neolithic people, whose implements abound in the neighbourhood, and not as having been inhabited by a race of cannibals.
The bodies had been interred in the crouching posture, with their thighs bent, their heads resting on their arms, and their faces turned towards the valley. They rested side by side in two small holes, which had been dug in the deposit containing the bones of the animals, and the skeletons were cemented to the rock by stalagmite, and surrounded by large stones. ”

“ Windy Bill brought us to consciousness by a wild yell. Consciousness reported us a strange hurried sound like the long roll on a drum. Investigation showed us that this cave, too, had sprung a leak, not with any premonitory drip, but all at once, as though some one had turned on a faucet. In ten seconds a very competent streamlet six inches wide had eroded a course down through the guano, past the fire and to the outer slope. And by the irony of fate that one—and only one—leak in all the roof expanse of a big cave was directly over one end of our tiny ledge. ”

“ I, at length, became so much alarmed—as the cave trembled excessively—for our safety, that I determined, rather than be buried alive, to stand out from under the earth; so, taking my child in my arms, and calling the servants, we ran to a refuge near the roots of a large fig tree, that branched out over the bank, and served as a protection from the fragments of shells. As we stood trembling there—for the shells were falling all around us—some of my gentlemen friends came up to reassure me, telling me that the tree would protect us, and that the range would probably be changed in a short time. ”

“ It was only during occasional droughts, when the streams were dry, that the cave seems to have been frequented by animals, their remains being very scarce in that bed, while indications of man are comparatively numerous. As the excavation of the valley proceeded, the level of the stream was lowered and became more restricted to the valley-channel. The cave consequently became drier, and was more resorted to by predatory animals, who carried in their prey to devour, and was less frequented by man. ”

“ The glimmer was an enigma, like the glaucous light from the eye-pupil of a Sphinx. The whole cave represented the interior of a death’s-head of enormous proportions, and of a strange splendour. The vault was the hollow of the brain, the arch the mouth; the sockets of the eyes were wanting. The cavern, alternately swallowing and rendering up the flux and reflux through its mouth wide opened to the full noonday without, seemed to [Pg 219] drink in the light and vomit forth bitterness; a type of some beings intelligent and evil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The homes of the cave men were located, when possible, where the refuge of safety overhung closely the river's bank, and where the non-climbing animals must pass along beneath them, but, even at that period of few men and abundant animal life, there had developed an acuteness among the weaker beasts, and they had learned to avoid certain paths that had proved fatal to their brethren. ”

“ If the cave were deserted, why did not the sheriff and his posse comitatus destroy the steps leading up into it, and thus render a retreat into it impossible? The only conclusion at which one can arrive is that the custodians of the law in the fifteenth century were half-hearted in the discharge of their duty, that there was a secret admiration for the wild outlaw in their hearts, and that they were reluctant to see the scion of a brave and ancient house brought to the gallows.
Some men have become predatory animals, and as such seek out lairs as would the beasts of prey. ”

“ The Hunter home included a large tract of land running clear up to the foot of the mountain, which, at this point, was rocky and covered with a plentiful growth of white pine, hemlock and black spruce. Hidden behind an irregular heap of boulders and a small timber foreground was a cave, formed by nature and nature's anarchistic elements, that could not fail to delight the most fastidious wonder-seeker. ”

“ The stream by which the contents of the cave were introduced had a course probably analogous to that of Dalebeck (Fig. 6) and the remains of the animals were caught up from the surface, and accumulated in the276 subterranean chambers which it traversed. Their abundance offers no obstacle to this view, since wild animals frequent their drinking places in vast numbers, and fall a prey to the carnivora which lurk near the streams, and very many tumble into the natural pitfalls, or swallow-holes, so universal in limestone districts. ”

“ In the roof of the cave is a large chimney-like shaft, formerly rising to the surface, but now blocked up by fragments of limestone, mud, and sand, adhering together by incrustation, and through which dreadful pitfall, it is presumed, this immense number of beasts were precipitated at the great inundation. The rubbish has been partially cleared, and the bones are used to decorate the sides of the walls. A British earthwork crowns the summit of the neighbouring eminence, enclosing, within its irregular rampart, an area of about 20 acres ”

“ Though the darkness of the cave was so great that I could not distinguish day and night, yet I always found my coffin again, and the cave seemed to be more spacious and fuller of corpses than it appeared to me at first. I lived for some days upon my bread and water, which being all used up at last I prepared for death.
As I was thinking of death, I heard something walking, and blowing or panting as it walked. I advanced towards that side from whence I heard the noise, and upon my approach the thing puffed and blew harder, as if it had been running away from me. ”

“ Should the cache not be formed in the vicinity of a stream, the earth thus thrown up is carried to a distance, and scattered in such a manner as not to leave the minutest trace. The cave being formed, is well lined with dry grass, bark, sticks, and poles, and occasionally a dried hide. The property intended to be hidden is then laid in, after having been well aired: a hide is spread over it, and dried grass, brush, and stones thrown in, and trampled down until the pit is filled to the neck. ”

“ But the trees bore nuts and fruits, and such creatures as found food in nuts and fruits, and, later, such as loved rich herbage, came to the forest in great numbers, and then followed such as fed upon these again, all the flesh eaters, to whom man was, as any other living thing, to be seized upon and devoured. The promontory, so rich in game and nuts and fruits, was, at the same time, the most dangerous in all the region for human habitation. There were deep, dry caves within its limits, but in none of them had a cave man yet ventured to make his home. ”

“ No beast of a size greater than that of a lank wolf or sinewy wildcat could enter the cave through the narrow entrance between the heaped-up rocks, and of these, as of any other dangerous beast, there was none which would face what barred even the narrow passage, for it was fire. ”

“ The cave, no doubt, had served them as an asylum in the preceding winter, and appearances warranted the supposition that these poor creatures, in a vain effort to save their little store of provisions, fell victims to the ferocity of their murderers. The clothes of the young peasants were torn to atoms, and bore testimony that they did not lose their lives without a struggle. ”