Chapter 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 in a succession of rolling waves. Just on the
hither side of the crest of the first wave we halted for the
night. My first act was to examine Leo’s condition. It was, if
anything, worse than in the morning, and a new and very
distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued till dawn.
Not one wink of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it in
assisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and
indefatigable nurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job.
However, the air here was warm and genial without being too hot,
and there were no mosquitoes to speak of. Also we were above the
level of the marsh mist, which lay stretched beneath us like the
dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up here and there by the
wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen that we were,
speaking comparatively, in clover.

By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and
fancied that he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully
distressed, and began to 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 spot where he could be
quiet, and have proper nursing, within the next twelve hours, his
life would only be a matter of a day or two. I could not but
agree with him, so we got Leo into the litter, and started on,
Ustane walking by his side to keep the flies off him, and see
that he did not throw himself out on to the ground.

Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise
of which I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our
gaze. Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with
grass and lovely with foliage and flowers. In the background, at
a distance, so far as I could judge, of some eighteen miles from
where we then stood, a huge and extraordinary mountain rose
abruptly from the plain. The base of this great mountain appeared
to consist of a grassy slope, but rising from this, I should say,
from subsequent observation, at a height of about five hundred
feet above the level of the plain, was a most tremendous and
absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite twelve or fifteen
hundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain, which was
undoubtedly of volcanic origin, was round, and of course, as only
a segment of its circle was visible, it was difficult to estimate
its exact size, which was enormous. I afterwards discovered that
it could not cover less than fifty square miles of ground.
Anything more grand and imposing than the sight presented by this
great natural castle, starting in solitary grandeur from the
level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I never shall. Its
very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffs
seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed, generally speaking, they were
clothed in clouds 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
thrilling and majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed
it, for he brought his litter alongside.

“Behold the house of ‘_She-who-must-be-obeyed_!’” he said. “Had
ever a queen such a throne before?”

“It is wonderful, my father,” I answered. “But how do we enter?
Those cliffs look hard to climb.”

“Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What
thinkest thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me.”

I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running
straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered
with turf. 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 not understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody
should embank a roadway.

“Well, my father,” I answered, “I suppose that it is a road,
otherwise I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed
of a river, or rather,” 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
the day before—nodded his head sagely as he replied—

“Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who
were before us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am
sure: within the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey
was once a great lake. But those who were before us, by wonderful
arts of which I know naught, hewed a path for the water through
the solid rock of the mountain, piercing even to the bed of the
lake. But first they cut the channel that thou seest across the
plain. Then, when at last the water burst 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. Then
when the lake was drained dry, the people whereof I speak built a
mighty city on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name of
Kôr yet remaineth, and from age to age hewed the caves and
passages that thou wilt see.”

“It may be,” I answered; “but if so, how is it that the lake does
not fill 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 to keep it clear. Seest thou the river to the right?” and
he pointed to a fair-sized stream that wound away across the
plain, some four miles from us. “That is the drain, and it comes
out through the mountain wall where this 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
great mountain,” I asked, “except through that drain?”

“There is a place,” he answered, “where cattle and men on foot
may cross with much labour, but it is secret. A year mightest
thou search and shouldst never find it. It is only used once a
year, when the herds of cattle that have been fatting on the
slopes of the mountain, and on this plain, are driven into the
space within.”

“And does _She_ live there always?” I asked, “or does she come at
times without 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
with delight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and
trees, the latter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of
three or four, much of the timber being of large size, and
belonging apparently to a variety of evergreen oak. There were
also many palms, some of them more than one hundred feet high,
and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns that I ever saw,
about which hung clouds of jewelled honeysuckers and great-winged
butterflies. Wandering about among the trees or crouching in the
long and feathered grass were all varieties of game, from
rhinoceroses down. I saw a rhinoceros, buffalo (a large herd),
eland, quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all the
bucks, not to mention many smaller varieties of game, and three
ostriches which scudded away at our approach like white drift
before a gale. So plentiful was the game that at last I could
stand it no longer. I had a single barrel sporting Martini with
me in the litter, the “Express” being too cumbersome, and espying
a beautiful fat eland rubbing himself under one of the oak-like
trees, I jumped out of the litter, and proceeded to creep as near
to him as I could. He let me come within eighty yards, and then
turned his head, and stared at me, preparatory to running away. I
lifted the rifle, and taking him about midway down the shoulder,
for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot or a
better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprang
right up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had all
halted to see the performance, gave a murmur of surprise, an
unwonted compliment from 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 for myself, though I was longing to
have a look at him, I sauntered back to my litter as though I had
been in the habit of killing eland all my life, feeling that I
had gone up several degrees in the estimation of the Amahagger,
who looked on the whole thing as a very high-class manifestation
of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I had never seen an
eland in a wild state before. Billali received me with
enthusiasm.

“It is wonderful, my son the Baboon,” he cried; “wonderful! Thou
art a very great man, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I
would never have believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach
me to slay in this fashion?”

“Certainly, my father,” I said airily; “it is nothing.”

But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when “my father”
Billali began to fire I would without fail lie down or take
refuge behind a tree.

After this little incident nothing happened of any note till
about an hour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath
the shadow of the towering volcanic mass that I have already
described. It is quite impossible for me to describe its grim
grandeur as it appeared to me while my patient bearers toiled
along the bed of the ancient watercourse towards the spot where
the rich brown-hued cliff shot up from precipice to precipice
till its crown lost itself in a cloud. All I can say is that it
almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome and most solemn
greatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope, till at last
the creeping shadows from above swallowed up its brightness, and
presently we began to pass through a cutting hewn in the living
rock. Deeper and deeper grew this marvellous work, which must, I
should say, have employed thousands of men for many years.
Indeed, how it was ever executed at all without the aid of
blasting-powder or dynamite I cannot to this day imagine. It is
and must remain one of the mysteries of that wild land. I can
only suppose that these cuttings and the vast caves that had been
hollowed out of the rocks they pierced were the State
undertakings of the people of Kôr, who lived here in the dim lost
ages of the world, and, as in the case of the Egyptian monuments,
were executed by the forced labour of tens of thousands of
captives, carried on through an indefinite number of centuries.
But who were the people?

At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found
ourselves looking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that forcibly
reminded me of those undertaken by our nineteenth-century
engineers in the construction of railway lines. Out of this
tunnel flowed a considerable stream of water. Indeed, though I do
not think that I have mentioned it, we had followed this stream,
which ultimately developed into the river I have already
described as winding away to the right, from the spot where the
cutting in the solid rock commenced. Half of this cutting formed
a channel for the stream, and half, which was placed on a
slightly higher level—eight feet perhaps—was devoted to the
purposes of a roadway. At the termination of the cutting,
however, the stream turned off across the plain and followed a
channel of its own. At the mouth of the cave the cavalcade was
halted, and, while the men employed themselves in lighting some
earthenware lamps they had brought with them, Billali, descending
from his litter, informed me politely but firmly that the orders
of _She_ were that we were now to be blindfolded, so that we
should not learn the secret of the paths through the bowels of
the mountains. To this I, of course, assented cheerfully enough,
but Job, who was now very much better, notwithstanding the
journey, did not like it at all, fancying, I believe, that it was
but a preliminary step to being hot-potted. He was, however, a
little consoled when I pointed out to him that there were no hot
pots at hand, and, so far as I knew, no fire to heat them in. As
for poor Leo, after turning restlessly for hours, he had, to my
deep thankfulness, at last dropped off into a sleep or 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
linen whereof those of the Amahagger who condescended to wear
anything in particular made their dresses, tightly round the
eyes. This linen I afterwards discovered was taken from the
tombs, and was not, as I had at first supposed, of native
manufacture. The bandage was then knotted at the back of the
head, and finally brought down again and the ends bound under the
chin to prevent its slipping. Ustane was, by the way, also
blindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she
should impart the secrets of the route to us.

This operation performed we started on once more, and soon, by
the echoing sound of the footsteps of the bearers and the
increased noise of the water caused by reverberation in a
confined space, I knew that we were entering into the bowels of
the great mountain. It was an eerie sensation, being borne along
into the dead heart of the rock we knew not whither, but I was
getting used to eerie sensations by this time, and by now was
pretty well prepared for anything. So I lay still, and listened
to the tramp, tramp of the bearers and the rushing of the water,
and tried to believe that I was enjoying myself. Presently the
men set up the melancholy little chant that I had heard on the
first night when we were captured in the whaleboat, and the
effect produced by their voices was very curious, and quite
indescribable. After a while the air began to get exceedingly
thick and heavy, so much so, indeed, that I felt as though I were
going to choke, till at length the litter took a sharp turn, then
another and another, and the sound of the running water ceased.
After this the air was fresher again, but the turns were
continuous, and to me, blindfolded as I was, most bewildering. I
tried to keep a map of them in my mind in case it might ever be
necessary for us to try and escape by this route, but, needless
to say, failed utterly. Another half-hour or so passed, and then
suddenly I became aware that we were once more in the open air. I
could see the light through my bandage and feel its freshness on
my face. A few more minutes and the caravan halted, and I heard
Billali order Ustane to remove her bandage and undo ours. Without
waiting for her attentions I got the knot of mine loose, and
looked out.

As I anticipated, we had passed right through the precipice, and
were now on the farther side, and immediately beneath its
beetling face. The first thing I noticed was that the cliff is
not nearly so high here, not so high I should say by five hundred
feet, which proved that the bed of the lake, or rather of the
vast ancient crater in which we stood, was much above the level
of the surrounding plain. For the rest, we found ourselves in a
huge rock-surrounded cup, not unlike that of the first place
where we had sojourned, only ten times the size. Indeed, I could
only just make out the frowning line of the opposite cliffs. A
great portion of the plain thus enclosed by nature was
cultivated, and fenced in with walls of stone placed there to
keep the cattle and goats, of which there were large herds about,
from breaking into the gardens. Here and there rose great grass
mounds, and some miles away towards the centre I thought that I
could see the outline of colossal ruins. I had no time to observe
anything more at the moment, for we were instantly surrounded by
crowds of Amahagger, similar in every particular to those with
whom we were already familiar, who, though they spoke little,
pressed round us so closely as to obscure the view to a person
lying in a hammock. Then all of a sudden a number of armed men
arranged in companies, and marshalled by officers who held ivory
wands in their hands, came running swiftly towards us, having, so
far as I could make out, emerged from the face of the precipice
like ants from their burrows. These men as well as their officers
were all robed in addition to 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 wand transversely across his forehead, and then asked some
question which I could not catch, and Billali having answered him
the whole regiment turned and marched along the side of the
cliff, our cavalcade of litters following in their track. After
going thus for about half a mile we halted once more in front of
the mouth of a tremendous cave, measuring about sixty feet in
height by eighty wide, and here Billali descended finally, 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 the
great cave, into which the light of the setting sun penetrated
for some distance, while beyond the reach of the daylight it was
faintly illuminated with lamps which seemed to me to stretch away
for an almost immeasurable distance, like the gas lights of an
empty London street. The first thing I noticed was that the walls
were covered with sculptures in bas-relief, of a sort,
pictorially speaking, similar to those that I have described upon
the vases;—love-scenes principally, then hunting pictures,
pictures of executions, and the torture of criminals by the
placing of a, presumably, red-hot pot upon the head, showing
whence our hosts had derived this pleasant practice. There were
very few battle-pieces, though many of duels, and men running and
wrestling, and from this fact I am led to believe that this
people were not much subject to attack by exterior foes, either
on account of the isolation of their position or because of their
great strength. Between the pictures were columns of stone
characters of a formation absolutely new to me; at any rate, they
were neither Greek nor Egyptian, nor Hebrew, nor Assyrian—that I
am sure of. They looked more like Chinese writings than any other
that I am acquainted with. Near to the entrance of the cave both
pictures and writings were worn away, but further in they were in
many cases absolutely fresh and perfect as the day on which the
sculptor had ceased work on them.

The regiment of guards did not come further than the entrance to
the cave, where they formed up to let us pass through. On
entering the place itself 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 deaf mute, was not very
wonderful.

Running at right angles to the great cave, at a distance of some
twenty feet from the entrance, was a smaller cave or wide
gallery, that was pierced into the rock both to the right and to
the left of the main cavern. In front of the gallery to our left
stood two guards, from which circumstance I argued that it was
the entrance to the apartments of _She_ herself. The mouth of the
right-hand gallery was unguarded, and along it the mute indicated
that we were to go. Walking a few yards down this passage, which
was lighted with lamps, we came to the entrance of a chamber
having a curtain made of some grass material, not unlike a
Zanzibar mat in appearance, hung over the doorway. This the mute
drew back with another profound obeisance, and led the way into a
good-sized apartment, hewn, of course, out of the solid rock, but
to my great relief 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, and beautifully tanned leopard skins
to serve as blankets.

Here we left Leo, who was still sleeping heavily, and with him
stopped Ustane. I noticed that the mute gave her a very sharp
look, as much as to say, “Who are you, and by whose order do you
come here?” Then he conducted us to another similar room which
Job took, and then to two more that were respectively occupied by
Billali and myself.