It sounded quite reassuring! But I knew that I was not to be killed
immediately, and so I took heart. They led me toward the cliffs, and
as we approached them, I glanced up and was sure that I saw Ajor's
bright eyes peering down upon us from our lofty cave; but she gave no
sign if she saw me; and we passed on, rounded the end of the cliffs and
proceeded along the opposite face of them until we came to a section
literally honeycombed with caves. All about, upon the ground and
swarming the ledges before the entrances, were hundreds of members of
the tribe. There were many women but no babes or children, though I
noticed that the females had better developed breasts than any that I
had seen among the hatchet-men, the club-men, the Alus or the apes. In
fact, among the lower orders of Caspakian man the female breast is but
a rudimentary organ, barely suggested in the apes and Alus, and only a
little more defined in the Bo-lu and Sto-lu, though always increasingly
so until it is found about half developed in the females of the
spear-men; yet never was there an indication that the females had
suckled young; nor were there any young among them. Some of the
Band-lu women were quite comely. The figures of all, both men and
women, were symmetrical though heavy, and though there were some who
verged strongly upon the Sto-lu type, there were others who were
positively handsome and whose bodies were quite hairless. The Alus are
all bearded, but among the Bo-lu the beard disappears in the women.
The Sto-lu men show a sparse beard, the Band-lu none; and there is
little hair upon the bodies of their women.
The members of the tribe showed great interest in me, especially in my
clothing, the like of which, of course, they never had seen. They
pulled and hauled upon me, and some of them struck me; but for the most
part they were not inclined to brutality. It was only the hairier
ones, who most closely resembled the Sto-lu, who maltreated me. At
last my captors led me into a great cave in the mouth of which a fire
was burning. The floor was littered with filth, including the bones of
many animals, and the atmosphere reeked with the stench of human bodies
and putrefying flesh. Here they fed me, releasing my arms, and I ate
of half-cooked aurochs steak and a stew which may have been made of
snakes, for many of the long, round pieces of meat suggested them most
nauseatingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account