Down such
swallow-holes how many beasts must fall: either in hurry and fright, when
hunted by lions and bears and such cruel beasts; or more often still in
time of snow, when the holes are covered with drift; or, again, if they
died on the open hill-sides, their bones might be washed in, in floods,
along with mud and stones, and buried with them in the cave below; and
beside that, lions and bears and hyaenas might live in the caves below,
as we know they did in some caves, and drag in bones through the caves'
mouths; or, again, savages might live in that cave, and bring in animals
to eat, like the wild beasts; and so those bones might be mixed up, as we
know they were, with things which the savages had left behind--like flint
tools or beads; and then the whole would be hardened, by the dripping of
the limestone water, into a paste of breccia just like this in my drawer.
But the bones of the savages themselves you would seldom or never find
mixed in it--unless some one had fallen in by accident from above. And
why? (For there is a Why? to that question: and not merely a How?)
Simply because they were men; and because God has put into the hearts of
all men, even of the lowest savages, some sort of reverence for those who
are gone; and has taught them to bury, or in some other way take care of,
their bones.
But how is the swallow-hole sure to end in a cave?
Because it cannot help making a cave for itself if it has time.
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