Читать книгу The Crystal Sceptre - Philip Verrill Mighels - Страница 9

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IN the morning I witnessed a primitive ceremony, the burial of the dead, killed in our latest battle.

The ones who had been despatched by the savage ourang-outangs had been buried the day before, while I lay asleep beneath the trees.

The males proceeded, this morning, to a rocky gulch, not far from the camp, where the soil was largely of gravel and bits of stuff which I thought indicated a chalk formation below. Here they began to dig as if their lives depended on their speed, all of them scratching out the dirt with powerful, claw-like hands and sending it flying behind them, between their legs. In fact, they dug like so many dogs.

It was surprising how soon they had excavated a great hole, but they kept at it, hard and fast, taking turns, as if they had learned that depth was the only virtue of any vault for the dead. Chunks of rock flew out, with lesser debris, and some of the pebbles being smooth and round, I gathered half a dozen as large as a mango and pushed off the dampish soil adhering about them. This revealed their colour, which was chalkish white. I could not rely upon my limited knowledge of geological formations, yet I thought the pebbles looked very like chalcedony.

On a large rock, with another for a hammer, I struck one of my pebbles, when it split most neatly in twain. The inside had a moist appearance the like of which I had never noted before, but it was decidedly like flint, and I was therefore confirmed in my classification. Well satisfied with myself, I struck a half again, when I succeeded in splitting off a thin, flat section. Astonished at the manner in which this substance broke, I selected a neater "hammer" from among the rocks and began to knock off chips from my fragment, and almost before I could believe it myself, I had a crude arrow-head of which I felt I need not be ashamed. I was thoroughly amazed. Had I discovered a stone which lent itself peculiarly to chipping, or had I stumbled upon some flint in a natural condition for being worked? I remembered to have heard of rock which certain savages—notably those of Alaska—take from the earth while moist, in which condition they carve it with ease, and which subsequently grows as hard as glass. I wondered if this were not a similar material. Also I reasoned that savages must always have had some flint which was capable of being worked with the poorest of tools and by persons of no intellectual attainments, for all had made arrow-heads from the year of one.

In my zeal, I split the original pebble into six thin slabs, nearly all of them as regular as if I had cut them with a knife. These I wrought at with feverish eagerness. Too much haste soon ruined one for any purpose, but out of the others I got several heads, which should have been better, but which made me ready to dance with joy, for they suggested such wonderful possibilities, when care and patience and better tools should be employed.

I had quite forgotten the burial, but looked up from my hammer-hunting in time to see the stiffened bodies of the Links, who had given their lives in the fray, go rolling down to the bottom of the grave where they lay, looking terribly human. Then without even a moment's pause, for regret or touch of reverent feeling, the Links above turned their backs upon the bodies and began to scratch the dirt once more into place. A pang of sympathy welled up in my breast, for the brave fellows so lightly considered. I breathed a little hope that their rest might be that of peace.

Before the hole was full I had gathered together a lot of the pebbles. Later we all piled rocks on the grave till no animal of the jungle could have dug out the bodies in a week. I signified then that I wished my geological collection carried to camp, and this was accordingly done.

On arriving at the cave, I selected a rock for an anvil and others for tools, for a fit of work was on me. Fruits gave me breakfast enough. I chipped away rapidly, with never-ending astonishment at the rapid results achieved. It was easy even to indicate to Fatty and to one or two others what they could do to promote the manufacture of needed things. They were able to cleave the pebbles with reasonable accuracy and skill. I then made them understand that I wished the smaller pebbles split into thin slices and the larger ones into sections that were thicker.

I make no pretence that my arrow-heads were as fine as many a primitive man has fashioned in ages past, but at least they were sharp and provided with shanks for binding them to arrows and, what is more to the purpose, they accumulated fast. Of the longer pieces of flint I formed a number of spear-heads and knives. Some of these latter would doubtless have been as well named had I called them saws. With some pieces I made what I mentally dubbed experimental hatchets. All these things, as fast as made, were placed in the large sea-shell, which answered well as a receptacle.

Without interrupting my labours I managed to convey to the marvelling Links that I needed more of the wood for bows, arrows and handles. How they would manage to cut this material was more than I knew, yet I reasoned that inasmuch as they must have cut the handles of their clubs, they could do the work by some means or other. Their method surprised me. They built a fire near the place where I had cut the branch for the bow, and getting a peculiar hard wood into a glowing state, pressed the incandescent surface against the limbs desired, and then by blowing, burned them off, not rapidly, but with great neatness. The fiery brand passed through the wood much as a red-hot iron might in the hands of a smith.

We were an enthusiastic lot that morning, I directing and working at my flints, some preparing cords, many scraping handles with bits of the glass-like material I had found, and with which they were already familiar, while others bound my hatchets to hafts, rudely finished, and knife blades to smaller odds and ends of wood. It was remarkable how readily they grasped the meaning of various things. Their exclamations of surprise and acknowledgment of the virtue of our growing "arsenal" frequently suggested to me a something as if the fellows were surprised at the real simplicity of all and were wondering why they had never done the like before.

After three or four hours the heat of the sun became so great, on my unprotected head, that I abandoned the pebbles long enough to construct a makeshift for a hat. For this I employed some palm leaves, excellently suited to the purpose. The chief eyed all our business with something of a look of sullen disdain. Perhaps it was jealousy beginning to work. He held to his precious club of rock-crystal—which certainly gleamed with great beauty in the rays of sunlight piercing through the leaves—as if it were the all in all that a warrior should require. At his side was a fawning fellow whom I had marked before as lazy, small- headed and much too fond of grinning, in a manner which conveyed no idea of mirth nor good-nature, but which, on the contrary, threw his teeth into disgusting prominence.

At about noon, when I was cramped and tired, from my close application to the work, I was glad to see a small detachment of our number returning from an excursion in quest of meat. It was not until a subsequent time that I learned how they drove their game into pits, to replenish the larder, but this day I inaugurated a new system of cooking. It was too great a waste of time for each to cook for himself, or herself, and the women being employed at nothing more arduous than gathering fruits and suckling babes, I saw no reason why they should not become the chefs for the tribe.

Accordingly I soon had two uprights driven in the ground and a lot of meat spitted on the green branch of a sapling. With glowing embers from two fires, collected between my uprights, and the wooden spit resting upon them, I showed a female how to keep the roast turning. Again the Links approved of the plan, for they were quick to see that one person working in this manner, could cook for all as readily as for one. They were restless to be at the meat as soon as the first bit of brown appeared, but I kept them off, made them replenish the embers from fires burned down, and then I cut off the places where the meat was done with my knife, for general distribution.

Again at this meal I was mad for salt. What did these fellows do for this requisite seasoning? I asked myself, for I had always understood that even savages grow unhealthy, if they lack this mineral, and become willing to barter off their souls for a small pinch. There was no explanation of the riddle that day.