Atlantis - the legend comes true!
Thursday, February 21st, 2008The long-cold lava streams flowing under the sea, the fragments of stonework and pottery discovered on the highest hills, told the explorers what they wanted to know: that the Lost Continent was not a legend but a fact.
By F.A. MITCHELL-HEDGES, F.RG.S.
PART ONE
FROM an escarpment on Helene - one of the lovely Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras - I looked down into the translucent waters of the Caribbean and trembled with excitement: there, clearly out lined on the sea-bed, lay evidence for which I’d been searching half my life…
My daughter Sammy - her real Christian name, Anna, is reserved for form-filling and signing official letters - came up beside me, looked for a long while in the direction of my pointing finger, then gave me a curious glance.
“So what?” she said. “It’s just an old lava flow - why get worked up about that?”
“Because it runs right out under the sea!” I cried. “Don’t you understand? A white hot lava flow can’t strike water and go rolling merrily on just as it does on land! It would cool at once and pile up in solid mountains!”
“On To Something”
SAMMY studied the black and sinister ribbon curling down the hillside and out beneath the waves. Her eyes widened and she gasped as the full significance of the phenomenon came to her.
“Yes, of course - I see it now! This means that at the time of the volcanic eruption the sea couldn’t have been there at all!” She made a sweeping movement with one arm over the bay. “All that must have been dry land!”
“All that - and maybe a great deal more. We’re on to something very strange, young feller. You’d better start looking for a headquarters site. Something tells me we’re going to be here for quite a time!”
That night, smoking a last pipe on the deck of the ‘Amigo’ I outlined my theory - based on evidence collected over more than twenty years of exploration in the Central Americas - to Frank Boynton, our barrel-chested, practical skipper.
“B-but that’s just a myth!” he spluttered.
“You’ve been around enough to know that myths usually turn out to have a basis in historical fact.”
“Yes, but this is different - this is big.”
“Don’t let it worry you, Frank. If local myths can be based on the truth, why not a world-wide legend? Listen…”
I explained that Helene’s undersea lava flow might prove to be a vital link in a long chain of evidence that at some remote time a great land area stretching eastward from Central America sank and was engulfed by the sea. Both on the mainland and in the Caribbean islands, geologists had found clear traces of an epic upheaval - cliffs riven and split, giant ‘faults’ where sections of land had dropped or risen hundreds - even thousands - of feet…
In Nicaragua I had explored a freshwater lake many miles inland in which sharks - salt water fish! - lived and bred. The only explanation of this oddity was that on that distant day of chaotic topographical changes, while vast regions went down beneath the waves, there were sections of the sea bed which rose and became dry land! The sharks had become inland ‘captives,’ and presumably had managed to adjust themselves over the ages in which the lake gradually lost its saline quality…
There were many other relevant facts in the ‘jig-saw’ - shells and fossils of sea creatures found on mountain peaks… the ‘overgrown’ iguanas and other strange creatures I had discovered living in almost prehistoric conditions in ‘the Lost World’ - No Name Island, a tiny and remote atoll… ancient rituals of mysterious origin and inexplicable pomp retained by the most isolated and primitive Indian tribes of the mainland…
Frank was impressed. Thought fully he asked: “Is it possible that some sort of civilisation was lost in that upheaval?”
This was something I didn’t dare answer directly: on the few occasions when I’d ventured to voice my personal ideas on the subject, various eminent - but little travelled - scientists had ho v. led me down.
“Wait here, Frank,” I said. “I want to show you something.” I dived below, rummaged in my cabin and returned with a fragment of pottery - the side of a vase, with some of the intricate design still visible. I explained that I’d found it about 100 miles from here, while exploring Cannon Island, an. old stronghold of the buccaneers in Brewer’s Lagoon - named after the infamous pirate, Bloody Brewer. And though I’d dug all round the place where it had come to light, I’d found nothing more.
“What period is it - Maya?” Frank inquired.
”No - it’s archaic. I’ve had several experts examine it. They all say it belongs to an unknown culture.”
He took the relic in his big hand and frowned at it. After a while he gave it back to me, nodded towards the dark, looming mass of the island and said: “You think maybe there’s more of that stuff here?”
“I hope so. If Helene has a past I’m going to dig it up!”
Systematic Search
EARLY next morning Sammy and I, with the crew of five assorted Latins, landed to make a systematic search. Frank, with his wooden leg - the result of a gun battle in Puerto Rico nearly 30 years before - couldn’t tackle the rugged hills and had to stay behind on the ‘Amigo.’
Helene’s limestone cliffs and colossal boulders, showing the erosion of thousands of years, were living evidence of mighty subterranean forces which had once burst into action here. Leaving the shore we pushed into a swamp: the contorted roots of mangrove trees curled and writhed down into oily mud, and a putrid stench filled the air. Even at this early hour the heat was terrific. A dense cloud of insects breakfasted on us.
Beyond the swamp we began to hack our way through lush jungle. Thorned trees and barbed bushes tore at us, and we were constantly entangled in trailing curtains of rope-like liana vine.
We emerged on a flat ridge and abruptly came up against a sheer cliff - a gigantic ‘fault’ traversing the island. On the face were several large holes. At first we took these to be natural caves - but on drawing closer we saw that without question they were hand-hewn!
Scrambling up an enormous heap of boulders piled against the cliff, we found a narrow ledge and edged our way along to the mouth of one of the largest caverns. A current of air, cold and dank, streamed out. I switched 6n my flashlight and advanced into the darkness, Sammy close behind me.
As the light flashed round the walls and roof, swarms of huge fruit-bats set up a shrill squeaking. We froze in our steps and the din faded. Treading softly, we moved on again, but without warning the bats panicked and swooped towards the entrance in headlong flight - their whirring, flapping wings and furry bodies smashing into our faces and chests. We stumbled back to the ledge, flailing our arms to beat them off.
From outside the cave the pandemonium of squeaking and fluttering was even more horrifying. Some strange trick of amplification made the beating of the leathery wings sound like the throb of a giant dynamo. Sammy shivered in revulsion.
“We’ll be smothered in fleas!” she complained, knowing that all bats are alive with the parasites. But somehow we seemed to have escaped without taking on ‘passengers.’
Further along the ledge we came upon another opening. The cave was deep, and so dark that even my power ful flashlight didn’t penetrate far. But there were no bats.
The floor was loose dust and debris, accumulated over centuries. Cautiously we began to dig, gently probing the powdery stuff with our machetes. Al most immediately Sammy gave a cry and held up a large, disintegrating conch-shell - sure evidence of human occupation! Seconds later one of the crew unearthed a small piece of broken pottery!
We were grovelling in the dirt now, rumbling for the age-worn, strangely assorted objects which would enable us to read the history of this place. In the lamp light Sammy’s eyes held an almost fanatical glow, and I knew mine must be the same…
Up out of the dust came the half-side of a vase. With trembling fingers Sammy cleaned some of the dirt from the surface. It had a grotesque decoration - an anthropomorphic (human form) god: it was altogether different from anything unearthed on the main land!
Wonderful Treasures
THIS was the first of many amazing finds. We explored several caves, and every one of them yielded painted pottery, various domestic implements, beads and - most interesting of all - beautifully fashioned jadeite figurines.
At sundown we returned to the ‘Amigo’ - tired out, our fingernails broken, our hands raw and ingrained with dirt. But no one complained: we were laden with treasures more desirable than gold…
Frank Boynton stared in wonder at our collection.
“I thought only Stone Age men lived in caves,” he said. “Surely they didn’t make stuff like this!”
“No - that’s the most important part of it all,” I explained. “The people who fashioned these things had a highly developed culture - yet they lived in miserable holes in the rocks. Why? It seems to me they must have been refugees, forced up on to the high land by floods or tidal waves.”
Sammy chimed in excitedly: “Survivors, you mean! - the remnants of a great civilisation which had vanished in a terrible eruption!”
“You’re going ahead too fast, young feller. We’ve a lot more digging and exploring to do before we draw definite conclusions. All the same - you’re on the right track…”
The Flood
FRANK scratched his head and looked at the island’s towering cliffs, stained dark red by the tropical sunset. The stupendous force of the cataclysm was clearer than ever in this fading light.
“Must have been a hellish upheaval,” he said. “Isn’t there some record of it?”
“You’re a heathen, Frank! Go and read your Bible. You’ll find a full report in the Old Testament.”
He raised one shaggy eyebrow, “You don’t mean - the Flood?”
I nodded and pointed out that dim accounts of the deluge, differing little from the Bible story of Noah, existed in the folklore of all races. A catastrophe of such magnitude could be caused by colossal and devastating changes of the earth’s surface during which the sea swallowed land areas - probably continental in extent.
“If I can find proof here of a pre-Flood civilisation,” I said, “they’ll have to re-write the history of the human race!”
While we had been talking, the crew had cleaned some of the smaller artifacts. Now Sammy brought me three curious specimens - fashioned in the forms of men, about three inches long by an inch and a half wide, with four perfectly round holes in the body and one at the top. They were hollow, and one still contained a little earth. I raised it to my mouth and blew through the top hole to clear it. A clear, sweet note sounded in the still evening air…
It was a musical instrument - an ocarina! By moving my fingers over the other holes I could play a tune!
We found among our trophies eleven of them - a veritable orchestra, since different sizes produced different sets of tones! No ignorant race could have evolved instruments with such perfect tonic and harmonic range - the men who fashioned these were musically cultured!
Squatting on the deck in the twilight we held an experimental concert. An eerie experience to make music with these instruments - unplayed for how long? I kept my estimation to myself - it was too staggering. Certainly many thousands of years…
In the weeks that followed we worked with the zeal of fanatics. Other sites were found and excavated on the island adjoining Helene - Roatan. As on previous expeditions, Sammy found a beautiful spot for our headquarters - a small, palm-clad atoll less than half-a-mile from our anchorage, a haven where cool ocean breezes made each evening a blessed relief. She supervised the building of a bush-house, and beautified the surroundings with vividly coloured conch-shells. We called it Cay Comfort.
The local people proved willing helpers. Light-skinned and handsome, the Bay islanders are the descendants of English buccaneers and high-born Spanish ladies kidnapped in the sackings of Porto Bello and Old Panama. They speak a quaint, almost Elizabethan English, and the surnames Morgan, Haylock and McNab predominate. In their isolated communities they refuse to inter-marry with other races; they will not mix with Spaniards, Hondurans or Caribs, and hardly ever with Indians. They ask nothing of the out side world, and are entirely self-supporting.
Learning Secrets
EACH day brought fresh discoveries, new trophies. Steadily the picture built up - until I was convinced we were learning the secrets of a civilisation with at least thrice the antiquity of Ur of the Chaldees!
Then came tragedy…
Joe, a valuable member of the crew, was a small dark man, partly Carib, partly Spanish, with brooding black eyes and a quiet manner. He knew every foot of the islands, for his home was an isolated shack on Roatan. Almost from the start of the voyage he’d been something of a mystery: he kept very much to himself, and I formed the distinct impression that the others were afraid of him.
One night Sammy checked our stores and found several small items missing. When she questioned the crew on board the ‘Amigo’ next morning, Joe looked very uncomfortable.
“Joe, I believe you stole these things!” she said.
With an angry snarl he reached for the ugly, black butt protruding from the top of his trousers. But he didn’t have time to draw the gun - Frank Boynton, despite his peg leg, could move swiftly. He came across the deck behind Joe and felled him with one great blow.
Deadly Killer
THREE other crewmen had jumped to Sammy’s defence - each drawing his gun. For a moment it looked as if they meant to shoot Joe as he lay on the deck, but instead they hauled him to his feet and proceeded to beat him up. It was as if they were giving vent to pent-up hatred. Frank didn’t attempt to interfere. When it was over, Joe, blood-smeared and semi-conscious, was pitched over the rail; slowly he swam to the shore, dragged himself up the beach and staggered off into the trees.
We didn’t expect to see, or hear, of him again, but two nights later Frank came to the bush-house, white-lipped and grim.
“There’s been a murder on Roatan,” he said. “A woman was. shot - for the sake of a few miserable possessions. They say Joe did it, and they’re out hunting him!”
He sank into a cane chair and before I could say anything went on: “I’ve got Joe’s biography. He happens to be the deadliest killer in Central America - wanted by the policia of at least four countries. One of the men has known him for years - scared to talk till now, but tonight he told me Joe did his latest killing in Honduras. A commandante and five men came after him. He waited in a swamp and plugged the last of ‘em before he knew the first had been hit!”
“Well, it certainly looks as if Joe killed the woman,” I said, after a moment. “Come on - let’s go to the village and find out what’s happening.”
End of A Murderer
WE reached the outskirts just in time to hear a volley of shots and a woman’s high-pitched wail. Hurrying on, we found the entire population silently watching stern-faced men carry out the grim work which, since the days of the buccaneer communities, had been the policeless island’s only sentence on the murderer of a woman. Captured with the victim’s possessions on him, Joe had been summarily shot dead. Now they were cutting up his body and throwing the pieces to a family of ravenous pigs. And among those forced to witness this loathsome sight were Joe’s wife and children…
No one spoke to us as we made our way back through the crowd. They just stared sullenly.
Were they blaming us for the tragedy? Did they regard the other members of the expedition as partly responsible for Joe’s crime?
If they did, then we might as well pack up and set sail in the morning. For, without the wholehearted co-operation, of the islanders, we could not hope to carry on with our gigantic task - only just begun - of reclaiming from the realm of Myth the factual relics of Lost Atlantis!
PART II
THE deputation of Bay Islanders arrived at our expedition headquarters on Cay Comfort soon after daybreak: tall, light-skinned men with piercing eyes and solemn faces. We knew their visit was connected with the previous night’s grim ceremony on neighbouring Roatan - the summary execution of Joe, a member of our crew, for the murder of an island woman.
Were they blaming us for the tragedy? Did they hold the rest of the expedition partly responsible for Joe’s crime? Everything depended on their attitude. Without the whole-hearted co-operation of these islanders we couldn’t hope to carry on with our gigantic task - only just begun - of excavating large and difficult sites for evidence which, we believed, would prove to the world that Atlantis, a myth through the ages, had actually existed.
Anxious To Help
WITH Frank Boynton, the tough one-legged skipper of our 22-ton motor yacht ‘Amigo,’ I went down to the beach to meet them. They greeted us in the quaint, old-style English inherited from their buccaneer ancestors, then the spokesman, a patriarch with flowing white hair, gravely announced that they had come to ask a favour.
It sounded ominous. I took a deep breath, smiled and nodded non-committally. The spokesman scratched his grizzled chin for a moment, then declared his people would be glad if we would come to a feast that night - to celebrate the capture and execution of Joe!
Speechless with relief, Frank and I could only stare blankly. Mistaking our silence for uncertainty, the old man hastened to explain that the islanders were anxious to help us in our excavation work. They realised it wasn’t our fault that a member of our crew had turned out to be a ruthless killer. We reminded us that this isolated community had lived by the same rigid code for more than three centuries. The islanders were their own police, their own judges. Joe had known this. Joe had transgressed. And Joe had paid the penalty. It was unfortunate that we had lost a man, but surely we under stood why this had happened…? Again he assured us that they would and could help us in our quest.
I told them we would be glad to come to the feast and thanked them for their offer. The sun-wrinkled faces broke into wide grins and we all shook hands. It was the start of a long and fruitful partnership.
In the days that followed, almost every able-bodied man and boy turned up at our headquarters, ready to assist in the excavations on Helene and Roatan. With this increased manpower, soon we turned our attention to the exploration of a third island - Barbaret.
My daughter, Sammy and I landed with two crew members and four islanders. Laden with picks, shovels and sacks, we toiled uphill through dense forests filled with squawking parrots and parakeets until we emerged on a grassy slope. Looming before us was the highest point on the island.
Stupendous Task
A SINGLE look told us this was no ordinary hill: it seemed to stop short. The summit had been removed as neatly as the top of a boiled egg. Surely no process of nature could have produced such a perfectly flat ‘table’ - it must be the work of men! A stupendous task for twentieth-century engineers - what must it have been for ancient builders?
We were drenched in sweat and gasping when we reached the top, but we immediately began to probe with our machetes and within a few minutes disclosed huge, flat stones. Sammy found a vase - almost perfect, nine-and-a-half inches high with exquisitely moulded handles and a conventional design. Both sides bore in the centre the mask of an anthropomorphic deity.
We had seen that awesome countenance before - on the pottery recovered from the other two islands.
“The same people!” Sammy breathed. “And always they crowded up on to the highest ground…”
“Don’t blame them,” I said, with the utmost confidence. “They were survivors who’d seen their land engulfed by the sea!”
In the following days as fresh sites were discovered and opened up, the work went ahead at ever-greater speed. The legend of Atlantis grew stark and clear in my mind as day by day we unearthed the artifacts of an advanced, cultural population which these tiny islands could not possibly have developed, or even supported, for more than a few years.
Abode Of Outcasts
SOON I turned covetous eyes on a fourth island - Bonacca. To my surprise our local helpers begged me not to land on the southern end - it was, they said, “the abode of outcasts.”
“They’re quite right,” Frank said. “There’s a settlement there called Savannah Bight - a dozen or so huts, built on piles over the water. They’re a race apart - all Indian and Carib, probably descended from the slaves and captives of the old-time pirates. A real bad bunch.”
“We’re going all the same, Frank. I’ve heard rumours that these Savannah Bight folk keep finding all sorts of things - jadeite, obsidian, pottery galore and even spear-heads. Got to check up on that.”
Frank looked worried, but he didn’t argue, and a few hours later the ‘ Amigo’ rode great rollers through a tiny break in the reef into a miniature lagoon not far from Savannah Bight. Just above the waterline stood a rickety, isolated shack.
Sammy wanted to come with me, but I rowed to the beach alone. As I jumped ashore, an old man and two youths - obviously father and sons-came out of the house. Each wore a gunbelt and the old-timer carried an ancient rifle. Their expressions were distinctly hostile.
They stopped a few feet from me and the old man spoke in weird Spanish.
“We don’t like strangers.” That was all.
Stupid To Quit
FOR about a minute we eyed each other in silence, then he took a pace nearer and levelled the rifle at my stomach.
“Hear me? We don’t like strangers!”
My heart was pounding like a sparrow’s and the muscles of my abdomen were taut and trembling under the menace of the gun. I felt a complete idiot. What was I doing here, risking my neck for the sake of crumbling relics? For that matter, what madness had brought me to this wild, fever-ridden corner of the world? Why the devil had I spurned a nice, cushy job as something in the City…?’
But having come this far, it would be even more stupid to quit now. I braced myself and started to talk in frightful Spanish, at tremendous speed - trying to be the soul of politeness, explaining that all I wanted was a look at any old pottery they might have found.
The old man frowned and his bony finger tightened on the trigger. Mentally I had a foretaste of the bullet’s impact -on my belly. I breathed a prayer of thanks when abruptly he lowered the rifle, turned and started up the beach.
“Come and look,” he grunted over his shoulder.
I followed the trio into the shack. They opened a battered chest and revealed a conglomeration of pottery and various utensils. It was the most promising collection I’d seen so far. I started to ask questions, but the old man slammed the lid down and ordered me outside.
“You’ve seen it,” he growled. “Now back in your boat. Come again and yon won’t leave. We don’t like strangers!”
I didn’t argue. As I rowed back I wondered if there was a way to humour this intractable family. Then, as I neared the ‘Amigo,’ came a vicious ‘Crack!’ from the beach and a bullet smacked into the water close by the stern. A burst of raucous laughter followed. It was too much - I lost my temper…
“Gilly! Charlie! Johnnie! - get your guns!” I yelled as the dinghy came along
side and I scrambled aboard. “We’re going to teach these b——s a lesson!”
I dived below, buckled on my belt and ‘ guns and grabbed my rifle. Then back into the dinghy. My gang was waiting for me - three grinning brigands, busily checking ammunition and spinning the chambers of their well-oiled forty-fives. As we pulled away, Sammy came running to the rail, brandishing a Winchester.
“Wait for me, Dad!” she shouted. But I was temporarily deaf.
Like Brothers
AFTER a few strokes bullets began spraying the water all round us and whistling over our heads. But we crouched low and rowed steadily on. As we drew near the shore and got ready to return fire, the shooting stopped suddenly.
The dinghy beached. We jumped on to the sand. The aggressive trio were waiting, backed up against the shack, rifles levelled.
“Not a step nearer,” the old man said.
We stood no more than thirty feet apart, fingers curled round triggers, sizing each other up and scowling ferociously. A moment passed and then, still smarting from the rough treatment I’d received, I shook my fist and roared, “I don’t like strangers either!”
The result was magical. The three outcasts relaxed, their rifles were lowered, their shaggy heads went back and they began to laugh. My temper evaporated and I joined in their mirth. A moment more and we were wringing each other’s hands and slapping each other’s backs.
We were like brothers after that. The old man showed me everything in his collection and arranged that next day one of his sons would guide us to the area where the relics were found. He also guaranteed that there would be no hostility from his neighbours in Savannah Bight; we were his guests, and automatically the friends of everyone else in the settlement.
A valley: on either side great jungle-clad hills - a sinister and eerie place. Sammy shivered as we followed our young guide through a perfectly flat swamp which seemed to hold a chill of death in its gloomy depths - a sump of mud and disintegrating vegetation that had gone on rotting, layer upon layer, for thousands of years.
Looked Like Ghosts
AFTER about a mile the jungle came down on either side and covered the swamp. Now we had to fight the ooze and at the same time hack a path with our machetes through solid bush. We looked like ghosts in the faint glimmer of the few sickly. sunbeams that struggled down through the thick canopy of towering mangroves.
Three hours of this and both jungle and morass came to a sudden end. We stood at the base of a limestone barrier. It rose from flat, bare plain exactly like the great cliff on Helene - and was possibly a continuation of the same ‘fault,’ strong evidence of the great earth movement in the distant past, marking the place where one section of land had fallen and the other had reared up thousands of feet skywards….
From breaks and fissures near the base of 6 sheer rock wall a spring gurgled, clear and limpid, and flowed into a large, round pool. Sammy threw herself prone to drink, but jerked back with a cry and spat out the first mouthful: it was highly sulphurous.
As soon as she had shaken off her nausea, she ushered me to the water’s edge and pointed excitedly. There was a glint of pottery on the bottom.
Where had it come from? Had it been washed down from some secret place high on the cliff? Were there caves up there, like those on Helene?
Immense Monolith
LOOKING upwards, my eye was taken by an oddly shaped pinnacle of rock about 100 feet directly above the spring. It didn’t look like a natural formation: it jutted out from the limestone precipice, as though carved - an immense monolith with a flattened top.
A platform! I’d seen something like this only once before - in the rums of a great Maya city on the mainland. It gave me an idea - an exciting hunch…
With our shovels we made a fresh channel and managed to divert the flow of water; the bottom of the pool was revealed as a curious grey sand.
“Start digging!”
By mid-afternoon, amazing specimens were piling up - painted pottery, jadeite figurines and several objects of carved granite. Some of the latter disintegrated in our hands as we lifted them out; after thousands of years’ submersion the granite had become as soft as toothpaste!
The grey sand was only a few feet deep. Two or three hours’ work proved that we were standing in a huge basin of marble which had silted up! My hunch had been right - this was a sacred well, into which valuables had been cast as sacrifices.
The whole secret of the spot lay in the sulphurous water. The ancients would come to know it had medicinal properties, and probably the aged and infirm bathed In it. And, of course, they would ascribe its virtues to beneficent gods.
It wasn’t difficult to reconstruct the scene. Up on that great stone pulpit the high priest, the king and nobles in their vivid robes - in full view for miles against the tremendous background of limestone…. The high priest raising his hand, eyes flashing, voice trembling with fanaticism…. The people, crowded in their thou sands on the flat plain in front of the cliff, chanting in answer to his dread words, stripping themselves of their treasured Ornaments and casting them, together with their most beautiful vases and other goods, into the miraculous waters…
For many weeks the sacred well and its surrounding area constituted our most productive site. Of the hundreds of specimens we found there, scarcely one was of an ordinary character. Some of the pottery was amazingly beautiful and a high percentage of ‘the dig’ was in perfect condition.
The most important discovery was a god, sculptured from granite - as luck had it, still hard as on the remote day when it had splashed into the pool. Set on a curious plinth and measuring one foot nine inches tall, this idol was a work of art of the highest order. Today it may be viewed at the Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation), New York.
Bonacca, having proved the richest hunting ground, called for the most meticulous exploration. Our effort was rewarded with the most startling disclosure yet made: within an 800-yard wall enclosure we came upon a giant semi-circle of monolithic stones, obviously a place of worship - similar to the Druid stone formations to be found in Cornwall. This ‘Druidical’ religious site yielded large quantities of skilfully fashioned weapons: fine obsidian and chert spear-heads and arrow-heads.
Marvellous Find
THEN came a change of fortune. With 21 sites going strong, I went down with malarial fever and had to be carried back to Cay Comfort. I lay in the bush house with a temperature of 104, and had the most beautiful dreams. But there were times when, coming out of my delirium for a few minutes, I heard the wind howling through the palms outside and - knew that the rainy season was at hand. Once the weather broke there could be no more excavation, and there was one important task I’d left unfinished - the great lime stone cliff on Helene, with its man-made caves, had yet to be properly explored.
Sammy, ignoring my advice and the warnings of Frank Boynton, began off her own bat a systematic search of the caverns. Day after day she was caught in rain squalls and drenched to the skin. Before long she too had a touch of fever, but it didn’t stop her. One night I came out of a delirious bout to find her bending over me, eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Dad - I’ve found something marvellous!”
“What is it?” I croaked.
She withdrew, suddenly crafty.
“I won’t tell you. It’ll have to wait till you can come and see for yourself!”
Argument and appeal were useless; but three days later, my fever gone, but very weak and groggy, I followed her - gloating and still secretive - through Helene’s miasmatic swamps and jungle to the great cliff. We had with us four islanders, and I noticed they were unusually quiet and uneasy.
Statue Of A God
SAMMY led the way up a crumbling O path to a narrow entrance, cunningly concealed, about ten feet above ground. With our spotlights we negotiated a long, narrow passage and with startling sudden ness entered a hollowed-out chamber, roughly twelve feet wide.
She directed her lamp’s beam to the centre: there, sparkling like a million diamonds, stood a four-foot statue of a man - perfectly fashioned out of pure rock crystal!
Overawed, I stood looking at it for a long time in silence. Then I walked forward and made a close inspection. Sammy had been right - it was “something marvellous.” The figure had been rubbed down with sand from a solid block: I knew such a task could only have been done over centuries, generation after generation working with infinite patience - for rock crystal is very nearly as hard as diamond.
The statue was clearly one, of the principal gods of the Atlanteans. One thing was certain - it could not have been fashioned here, on this small island. I saw only two possibilities - either Helene was once part of a great continent, a mountain used as a place of worship and pilgrimage, or the figure had been brought here after the holocaust, by survivors of Atlantis pious enough to remember it in their country’s dying hours. The latter theory was certainly the least probable, yet I couldn’t help wondering where was the crystal god’s original home - in some vast temple now lying on the sea-bed? How many millions had paid homage to it, and what kind of people were they? If the figure could only speak, what wonders would it tell of that golden age beyond the dawn of history when, according to the persistent legend, a glamorous land of riches and culture lay in the West ’somewhere beyond the Gates of Atlas?’
“Somehow we’ve got to get this back,” I said, eyeing its bulk dubiously.
“No, Father!” Sammy’s eyes challenged mine in the stark light of the powerful torches. “We can’t take it away from here.” She came closer and laid a hand on my arm. Quietly, unemotionally, she explained that the islanders had known of this statue for centuries - it must have been rediscovered with the arrival of the buccaneers. They regarded it with superstitious dread. Today it was to them almost as much a god as it had been to the ancient survivors of Atlantis…
“They’ve shown us everything else on the islands, but they tried to keep this a secret,” she said. “I found it by accident - a million-to-one chance. Now they’re terrified, convinced that if it leaves Helene, something horrible will happen to them.”
Difficult Decision
I WENT outside, lit a pipe and argued with my conscience. It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but of course Sammy was right.
“Come on - let’s get back to the boat,” I said, and strode off in something of a rage. Sammy turned to our four islanders and said something I didn’t catch, then came after me. We’d covered only about two hundred yards when a deep rumbling made the ground tremble under our feet. I wheeled round; Sammy and I were alone… “What was that? Where are the others?”
Without a word Sammy turned and started back towards the cliff. I hurried after her. We emerged from the trees as the dust was settling: the entrance to the cave was blocked by an enormous pile of rocks and debris - an impassable barrier. I looked up and saw four fight brown faces peering down from a forty-foot ledge. A great wedge of limestone had been prised away and sent hurtling down the crumbling precipice, causing an avalanche…
“I told them they could do it,” Sammy said blithely. “They were glad you decided not to move the statue, but they wanted to make sure that no other explorer would come and take it away. Now it’ll stay on Helene for ever…”
I said nothing. As we turned away for the last time, heavy drops pattered down on the broad leaves of tropical foliage; by the time we reached the ‘ Amigo,’ the whole sky was the colour of gunmetal and a stiff wind was whip ping the sea into angry, grey foam. The rainy season had arrived.
“Up anchor, Frank! Our next job’s in New York.”
And the British Museum said…
“The specimens which you have submitted… have been carefully examined. It is my opinion that they represent a very early type of Central American culture, probably pre-Maya. The fact that they appear to bear relations with the pre-Conquest civilisations of Costa Rica, early Maya and archaic Mexico suggests that this is an early centre from which various forms of culture were diffused over Central America.
“The complex certainly ought to be examined, because, in my personal opinion, the results are likely to shed a new light on current ideas of the origin and development of the American aboriginal civilisation…”
From a letter to the author from the late Capt. T.A. Joyce of the Department of Ethnography, British Museum.
Tags: Atlantis | explorer | Mitchell-Hedges
