XI
THE PLAIN OF KÔR
About an hour before sundown we at last, to my unbounded gratitude,emerged from the great belt of marsh on to land that swelled upwards ina succession of rolling waves. Just on the hither side of the crestof the first wave we halted for the night. My first act was to examineLeo's condition. It was, if anything, worse than in the morning, and anew and very distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued tilldawn. Not one wink of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it inassisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and indefatigablenurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job. However, the air here waswarm and genial without being too hot, and there were no mosquitoesto speak of. Also we were above the level of the marsh mist, which laystretched beneath us like the dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up hereand there by the wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen thatwe were, speaking comparatively, in clover.
By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and fanciedthat he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully distressed, and beganto wonder with a sort of sick fear what the end of the attack would be.Alas! I had heard but too much of how these attacks generally terminate.As I was wondering Billali came up and said that we must be getting on,more especially as, in his opinion, if Leo did not reach some spotwhere he could be quiet, and have proper nursing, within the next twelvehours, his life would only be a matter of a day or two. I could not butagree with him, so we got Leo into the litter, and started on, Ustanewalking by his side to keep the flies off him, and see that he did notthrow himself out on to the ground.
Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise ofwhich I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our gaze.Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with grass and lovelywith foliage and flowers. In the background, at a distance, so far as Icould judge, of some eighteen miles from where we then stood, a huge andextraordinary mountain rose abruptly from the plain. The base of thisgreat mountain appeared to consist of a grassy slope, but rising fromthis, I should say, from subsequent observation, at a height of aboutfive hundred feet above the level of the plain, was a most tremendousand absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite twelve or fifteenhundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain, which was undoubtedlyof volcanic origin, was round, and of course, as only a segment of itscircle was visible, it was difficult to estimate its exact size, whichwas enormous. I afterwards discovered that it could cover less thanfifty square miles of ground. Anything more grand and imposing thanthe sight presented by this great natural castle, starting in solitarygrandeur from the level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I nevershall. Its very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffsseemed to kiss the sky. Indeed, generally speaking, they were clothed inclouds that lay in fleecy masses upon their broad and level battlements.
I sat up in my hammock and gazed out across the plain at this thrillingand majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed it, for hebrought his litter alongside.
"Behold the house of '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_!'" he said. "Had ever aqueen such a throne before?"
"It is wonderful, my father," I answered. "But how do we enter. Thosecliffs look hard to climb."
"Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What thinkestthou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me."
I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway runningstraight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered withturf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here and there,but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of which I did notunderstand. It seemed so very odd that anybody should embank a roadway.
"Well, my father," I answered, "I suppose that it is a road, otherwiseI should have been inclined to say that it was the bed of a river, orrather," I added, observing the extraordinary directness of the cutting,"of a canal."
Billali--who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of theday before--nodded his head sagely as he replied--
"Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who werebefore us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am sure: withinthe rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a greatlake. But those who were before us, by wonderful arts of which Iknow naught, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of themountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake. But first they cut thechannel that thou seest across the plain. Then, when at last the waterburst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive it,and crossed this plain till it reached the low land behind the rise,and there, perchance, it made the swamp through which we have come. Thenwhen the lake was drained dry, the people whereof I speak built a mightycity on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name of Kôr yetremaineth, and from age to age hewed the caves and passages that thouwilt see."
"It may be," I answered; "but if so, how is it that the lake does notfill up again with the rains and the water of the springs?"
"Nay, my son, the people were a wise people, and they left a drain tokeep it clear. Seest thou the river to the right?" and he pointed to afair-sized stream that wound away across the plain, some four miles fromus. "That is the drain, and it comes out through the mountain wall wherethis cutting goes in. At first, perhaps, the water ran down this canal,but afterwards the people turned it, and used the cutting for a road."
"And is there then no other place where one may enter into the greatmountain," I asked, "except through that drain?"
"There is a place," he answered, "where cattle and men on foot may crosswith much labour, but it is secret. A year mightest thou search andshouldst never find it. It is only used once a year, when the herds ofcattle that have been fatting on the slopes of the mountain, and on thisplain, are driven into the space within."
"And does _She_ live there always?" I asked, "or does she come at timeswithout the mountain?"
"Nay, my son, where she is, there she is."
By now we were well on to the great plain, and I was examining withdelight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and trees, thelatter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of three or four, muchof the timber being of large size, and belonging apparently to a varietyof evergreen oak. There were also many palms, some of them more than onehundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns thatI ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled honeysuckers andgreat-winged butterflies. Wandering about among the trees or crouchingin the long and feathered grass were all varieties of game, fromrhinocerotes down. I saw a rhinoceros, buffalo (a large herd), eland,quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all the bucks, notto mention many smaller varieties of game, and three ostriches whichscudded away at our approach like white drift before a gale. Soplentiful was the game that at last I could stand it no longer. I hada single barrel sporting Martini with me in the litter, the "Express"being too cumbersome, and espying a beautiful fat eland rubbing himselfunder one of the oak-like trees, I jumped out of the litter, andproceeded to creep as near to him as I could. He let me come withineighty yards, and then turned his head, and stared at me, preparatory torunning away. I lifted the rifle, and taking him about midway down theshoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shotor a better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprangright up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had all halted tosee the performance, gave a murmur of surprise, an unwonted complimentfrom these sullen people, who never appear to be surprised at anything,and a party of the guard at once ran off to cut the animal up. As formyself, though I was longing to have a look at him, I sauntered backto my litter as though I had been in the habit of killing eland all mylife, feeling that I had gone up several degrees in the estimationof the Amahagger, who looked on the whole thing as a very high-classmanifestation of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I hadnever seen an eland in a wild state before. Billali received me withenthusiasm.
"It is wonderful, my son the Baboon," he cried; "wonderful! Thou arta very great m
an, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I would neverhave believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach me to slay in thisfashion?"
"Certainly, my father," I said airily; "it is nothing."
But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when "my father" Billalibegan to fire I would without fail lie down or take refuge behind atree.
After this little incident nothing happened of any note till about anhour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath the shadow ofthe towering volcanic mass that I have already described. It is quiteimpossible for me to describe its grim grandeur as it appeared to mewhile my patient bearers toiled along the bed of the ancient watercoursetowards the spot where the rich brown-hued cliff shot up from precipiceto precipice till its crown lost itself in a cloud. All I can say isthat it almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome and most solemngreatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope, till at last thecreeping shadows from above swallowed up its brightness, and presentlywe began to pass through a cutting hewn in the living rock. Deeperand deeper grew this marvellous work, which must, I should say, haveemployed thousands of men for many years. Indeed, how it was everexecuted at all without the aid of blasting-powder or dynamite I cannotto this day imagine. It is and must remain one of the mysteries of thatwild land. I can only suppose that these cuttings and the vast cavesthat had been hollowed out of the rocks they pierced were the Stateundertakings of the people of Kôr, who lived here in the dim lostages of the world, and, as in the case of the Egyptian monuments, wereexecuted by the forced labour of tens of thousands of captives, carriedon through an indefinite number of centuries. But who were the people?
At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found ourselveslooking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that forcibly reminded me ofthose undertaken by our nineteenth-century engineers in the constructionof railway lines. Out of this tunnel flowed a considerable stream ofwater. Indeed, though I do not think that I have mentioned it, we hadfollowed this stream, which ultimately developed into the river I havealready described as winding away to the right, from the spot wherethe cutting in the solid rock commenced. Half of this cutting formed achannel for the stream, and half, which was placed on a slightly higherlevel--eight feet perhaps--was devoted to the purposes of a roadway. Atthe termination of the cutting, however, the stream turned off acrossthe plain and followed a channel of its own. At the mouth of the cavethe cavalcade was halted, and, while the men employed themselves inlighting some earthenware lamps they had brought with them, Billali,descending from his litter, informed me politely but firmly that theorders of _She_ were that we were now to be blindfolded, so that weshould not learn the secret of the paths through the bowels of themountains. To this I, of course, assented cheerfully enough, but Job,who was now very much better, notwithstanding the journey, did not likeit at all, fancying, I believe, that it was but a preliminary step tobeing hot-potted. He was, however, a little consoled when I pointed outto him that there were no hot pots at hand, and, so far as I knew, nofire to heat them in. As for poor Leo, after turning restlessly forhours, he had, to my deep thankfulness, at last dropped off into a sleepor stupor, I do not know which, so there was no need to blindfold him.The blindfolding was performed by binding a piece of the yellowish linenwhereof those of the Amahagger who condescended to wear anything inparticular made their dresses, tightly round the eyes. This linen Iafterwards discovered was taken from the tombs, and was not, as I had atfirst supposed, of native manufacture. The bandage was then knotted atthe back of the head, and finally brought down again and the ends boundunder the chin to prevent its slipping. Ustane was, by the way, alsoblindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she shouldimpart the secrets of the route to us.
This operation performed we started on once more, and soon, by theechoing sound of the footsteps of the bearers and the increased noiseof the water caused by reverberation in a confined space, I knew thatwe were entering into the bowels of the great mountain. It was an eeriesensation, being borne along into the dead heart of the rock we knew notwhither, but I was getting used to eerie sensations by this time, and bynow was pretty well prepared for anything. So I lay still, and listenedto the tramp, tramp of the bearers and the rushing of the water, andtried to believe that I was enjoying myself. Presently the men set upthe melancholy little chant that I had heard on the first night when wewere captured in the whaleboat, and the effect produced by their voiceswas very curious, and quite indescribable. After a while the air beganto get exceedingly thick and heavy, so much so, indeed, that I felt asthough I were going to choke, till at length the litter took a sharpturn, then another and another, and the sound of the running waterceased. After this the air was fresher again, but the turns werecontinuous, and to me, blindfolded as I was, most bewildering. I triedto keep a map of them in my mind in case it might ever be necessaryfor us to try and escape by this route, but, needless to say, failedutterly. Another half-hour or so passed, and then suddenly I becameaware that we were once more in the open air. I could see the lightthrough my bandage and feel its freshness on my face. A few more minutesand the caravan halted, and I heard Billali order Ustane to remove herbandage and undo ours. Without waiting for her attentions I got the knotof mine loose, and looked out.
As I anticipated, we had passed right through the precipice, and werenow on the farther side, and immediately beneath its beetling face. Thefirst thing I noticed was that the cliff is not nearly so high here, notso high I should say by five hundred feet, which proved that the bed ofthe lake, or rather of the vast ancient crater in which we stood, wasmuch above the level of the surrounding plain. For the rest, we foundourselves in a huge rock-surrounded cup, not unlike that of the firstplace where we had sojourned, only ten times the size. Indeed, I couldonly just make out the frowning line of the opposite cliffs. A greatportion of the plain thus enclosed by nature was cultivated, and fencedin with walls of stone placed there to keep the cattle and goats, ofwhich there were large herds about, from breaking into the gardens.Here and there rose great grass mounds, and some miles away towards thecentre I thought that I could see the outline of colossal ruins. I hadno time to observe anything more at the moment, for we were instantlysurrounded by crowds of Amahagger, similar in every particular to thosewith whom we were already familiar, who, though they spoke little,pressed round us so closely as to obscure the view to a person lyingin a hammock. Then all of a sudden a number of armed men arranged incompanies, and marshalled by officers who held ivory wands in theirhands, came running swiftly towards us, having, so far as I couldmake out, emerged from the face of the precipice like ants from theirburrows. These men as well as their officers were all robed in additionto the usual leopard skin, and, as I gathered, formed the bodyguard of_She_ herself.
Their leader advanced to Billali, saluted him by placing his ivory wandtransversely across his forehead, and then asked some question whichI could not catch, and Billali having answered him the whole regimentturned and marched along the side of the cliff, our cavalcade of littersfollowing in their track. After going thus for about half a mile wehalted once more in front of the mouth of a tremendous cave, measuringabout sixty feet in height by eighty wide, and here Billali descendedfinally, and requested Job and myself to do the same. Leo, of course,was far too ill to do anything of the sort. I did so, and we entered thegreat cave, into which the light of the setting sun penetrated forsome distance, while beyond the reach of the daylight it was faintlyilluminated with lamps which seemed to me to stretch away for an almostimmeasurable distance, like the gas lights of an empty London street.The first thing I noticed was that the walls were covered withsculptures in bas-relief, of a sort, pictorially speaking, similar tothose that I have described upon the vases;--love-scenes principally,then hunting pictures, pictures of executions, and the torture ofcriminals by the placing of a, presumably, red-hot pot upon the head,showing whence our hosts had derived this pleasant practice. Therewere very few battle-pieces, though many of duels, and men running andwrestling, and fro
m this fact I am led to believe that this people werenot much subject to attack by exterior foes, either on account of theisolation of their position or because of their great strength. Betweenthe pictures were columns of stone characters of a formation absolutelynew to me; at any rate, they were neither Greek nor Egyptian, norHebrew, nor Assyrian--that I am sure of. They looked more like Chinesewritings than any other that I am acquainted with. Near to the entranceof the cave both pictures and writings were worn away, but further inthey were in many cases absolutely fresh and perfect as the day on whichthe sculptor had ceased work on them.
The regiment of guards did not come further than the entrance to thecave, where they formed up to let us pass through. On entering the placeitself we were, however, met by a man robed in white, who bowed humbly,but said nothing, which, as it afterwards appeared that he was a deafmute, was not very wonderful.
Running at right angles to the great cave, at a distance of some twentyfeet from the entrance, was a smaller cave or wide gallery, that waspierced into the rock both to the right and to the left of the maincavern. In front of the gallery to our left stood two guards, from whichcircumstance I argued that it was the entrance to the apartments of_She_ herself. The mouth of the right-hand gallery was unguarded, andalong it the mute indicated that we were to go. Walking a few yards downthis passage, which was lighted with lamps, we came to the entrance ofa chamber having a curtain made of some grass material, not unlike aZanzibar mat in appearance, hung over the doorway. This the mute drewback with another profound obeisance, and led the way into a good-sizedapartment, hewn, of course, out of the solid rock, but to my greatrelief lighted by means of a shaft pierced in the face of the precipice.In this room was a stone bedstead, pots full of water for washing, andbeautifully tanned leopard skins to serve as blankets.
Here we left Leo, who was still sleeping heavily, and with him stoppedUstane. I noticed that the mute gave her a very sharp look, as muchas to say, "Who are you, and by whose order do you come here?" Then heconducted us to another similar room which Job took, and then to twomore that were respectively occupied by Billali and myself.