The Cave of the Ancients
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/allplanets-hollow/message/23553
http://www.galactic-server.net/rampa/ramcave1.html
(excerpt)I
looked in considerable astonishment. At first I could not see the
entrance,
all I saw was a dark shadow
looking much like a dried-up watercourse, or the
stain of minute lichen.
Then, as we crossed the ledge, I saw that
there
was indeed a crack in the rock face. A big lama grabbed me by the
shoulders
and pushed me into the rock
fissure saying, good-naturedly, "You go first,
and then you can chase out
any rock devils and so protect
us!" So I, the
smallest and least important of the party, was the first to
enter the Cave of
the Ancients. I
edged inside, and crept round the rock corners. Behind me I
heard the
shuffle and scrape as the bulkier men felt
their way in.
Suddenly the light burst upon me, for the moment almost
paralysing me with
fright. I stood motionless
by the rocky wall, gazing at the fantastic scene
within. The Cave appeared
to be about twice as large as the
interior of
the Great Cathedral of Lhasa. Unlike that Cathedral, which
always was
enshrouded in the
dusk(tusmørke), which butter lamps tried vainly to dispel,
here was
brightness more intense than that of the full
moon on a cloudless
night. No, it was much brighter than that; the quality
of the light must have
given me the
impression of moonlight. I gazed upwards at the globes which
provided the
illumination. The lamas crowded in beside
me, and, like me,
they gazed at the source of light first. My Guide said,
"The old records
indicate that the
illumination here was originally much brighter, these lamps
are burning low
with the passage of hundreds of
centuries."
For
long moments we stood still, silent, as though afraid of waking those
who
slept throughout the endless
years. Then, moved by a common impulse, walked
across the solid stone floor
to the first machine standing
dormant
(sovende) before us. We crowded around it, half afraid to touch it
yet very
curious as to what it could be. It was
dulled with age, yet it
appeared ready for instant use - if one knew what
it was for and how to
operate it. Other
devices engaged our attention, also without result. These
machines were far
far too advanced for us. I wandered off
to where a small
square platform of about three feet wide, with guard
rails, rested on the
ground. What appeared to
be a long, folded metal tube extended from a nearby
machine, and the
platform was attached to the other end of the
tube. Idly
I stepped on to the railed square, wondering what it could be.
The next
instant I almost died of shock;
the platform gave a little tremor and rose
high into the air. I was so
frightened that I clung in desperation to
the
rails.
Below me the six lamas gazed upwards in consternation. The tube
had
unfolded and was swinging the platform
straight to one of the spheres
of light. In desperation I looked over the
side. Already I was some thirty
feet in
the air, and rising. My fear was that the source of light would burn
me to
a crisp, like a moth in the flame of a
butter lamp. There was a
"click" and the platform stopped. Inches from my
face the light glowed.
Timidly
I stretched out my hand - and the whole sphere was as cold as ice. By
now I
had regained my composure somewhat, and
I gazed about me. Then a
chilling thought struck me; how was I going to get
down? I jumped from side
to side,
trying to work out a way of escape, but there appeared to be none. I
tried
to reach the long tube, hoping to climb
down, but it was too far
away. Just when I was becoming desperate, there
was another tremor, and the
platform
started to descend. Hardly waiting for it to touch ground I leaped
out! I
was taking no risks that the thing would
go up
again.
Against a far wall crouched a great statue, one that sent a shiver
up my
spine. It was of a crouching cat body,
but with the head and
shoulders of a woman. The eyes appeared to be alive;
the face had a
half-mocking,
half-quizzical expression which rather frightened me. One of
the lamas was
on his knees on the floor, gazing
intently at some strange
marks. "Look!" he called, "this picture-writing
shows men and cats
talking,
it shows what is obviously the soul leaving a body and wandering in
the
under-world." He was consumed with
scientific zeal, poring over the
pictures on the floor - "hieroglyphs" he
called them - and
expecting
everyone else to be similarly enthused. This Lama was a highly
trained man,
one who learned ancient languages
without any difficulties at
all. The others were poking around the strange
machines, trying to decide
what they
were for. A sudden shout made us wheel round in some alarm. The
tall thin
Lama was at the far wall and he seemed to
have his face stuck in
a dull metal box. He stood there with his head bent
and the whole of his face
concealed. Two
men rushed to him and dragged him away from the danger. He
uttered a roar
of wrath and dashed back!
"Strange!" I thought, "even
the sedate, learned lamas are going crazy in
this place!" Then
the tall,
thin one moved aside and another took his place. So far as I
could gather,
they were seeing moving
machines in that box. At last my Guide took pity on
me and lifted me up to
what apparently were "eye
pieces". As I was lifted
up and put my hands on a handle as instructed, I
saw inside the box, men, and
the
machines which were in this Hall. The men were operating the machines.
I
saw that the platform upon which I had
ascended to the light-sphere
could be controlled and was a type of moveable
"ladder" or rather a
device,
which would dispense with ladders. Most of the machines
here,
I observed, were actual working models such as, in later years, I was
to see
in Science Museums throughout
the world.
We moved to the panel which
the Lama Mingyar Dondup had told me about
previously, and at our approach it
opened
with a grating creak, so loud in the silence of the place that I think
we
all jumped with alarm. Inside was the
darkness, profound, almost as if
we had clouds of blackness swirling about
us. Our feet were guided by
shallow
channels in the floor. We shuffled (subbet) along, and when the
channels
ended we sat. As we did so, there came a
series of clicks, like
metal scraping against metal, and almost
imperceptibly light stole across the
darkness and
pushed it aside. We looked about us and saw more machines,
strange
machines. There were statues here, and pictures
carved in metal.
Before we had time to more than glance, the light drew in
upon itself and
formed a glowing globe
in the centre of the Hail. Colours flickered
aimlessly, and bands of light
without apparent meaning swirled round
the
globe. Pictures formed, at first blurred and indistinct, then growing
vivid
and real and with three-dimensional
effect. We watched
intently...
This was the world of Long Long Ago. When the world was very
young.
Mountains stood where now there are seas,
and the pleasant seaside
resorts are now mountain tops. The weather was
warmer and strange creatures
roamed afield.
This was a world of scientific progress. Strange machines
rolled along,
flew inches from the surface of the Earth,
or flew miles up
in the air. Great temples reared their pinnacles skywards,
as if in challenge
to the clouds.
Animals and Man talked telepathically together. But all was
not bliss;
politicians fought against politicians. The
world was a divided
camp in which each side coveted the lands of the other.
Suspicion and fear
were the clouds
under which the ordinary man lived. Priests of both sides
proclaimed that
they alone were the favoured of the gods.
In the pictures
before us we saw ranting priests - as now - purveying their
own brand of
salvation. At a price!
Priests of each sect taught that it was a "holy duty"
to kill the enemy.
Almost in the same breath they
preached that Mankind
throughout the world were brothers. The illogicality
of brother killing
brother did not occur
to them.
We saw great wars fought, with most of
the casualties (sårede) being
civilians. The armed forces, safe
behind
their armour, were mostly safe. The aged, the women and children,
those who
did not fight, were the ones to
suffer. We saw glimpses of
scientists working in laboratories, working to
produce even deadlier weapons,
working to
produce bigger and better bugs to drop on the enemy. One sequence
of
pictures showed a group of thoughtful men
planning what they termed a
"Time Capsule" (tidskapsel)(what we called "The
Cave of the
Ancients"),
wherein they could store for later generations working models
of their
machines and a complete,
pictorial record of their culture and lack of it.
Immense machines
excavated the living rock. Hordes of men
installed the
models and the machines. We saw the cold light spheres
hoisted in place,
inert radio-active
substances giving off light for millions of years. Inert
in that it could
not harm humans, active in that the light
would continue
almost until the end of Time itself.
We found that we could understand
the language, then the explanation was
shown, that we were obtaining
the
"speech" telepathically. Chambers such as this, or "Time Capsules",
were
concealed beneath the
sands of Egypt, beneath a pyramid in South
America, and at a certain spot
in Siberia. Each place was marked by
the
symbol of the times; the Sphinx. We saw the great statues of the
Sphinx,
which did not originate in Egypt,
and we received an explanation
of its form. Man and animals talked and
worked together in those far-off
days. The
cat was the most perfect animal for power and intelligence. Man
himself is
an animal, so the Ancients made a figure
of a large cat body to
indicate power and endurance, and upon the body they
put the breasts and head
of a woman.
The head was to indicate human intelligence and reason, while the
breasts
indicated that Man and Animal could draw
spiritual and mental
nourishment each from the other. That Symbol was then
as common as is Statues
of Buddha, or
the Star of David, or the Crucifix at the present
day.
We saw oceans with great floating cities, which moved from land to
land. In
the sky floated equally large craft
which moved without sound.
Which could hover, and almost instantly flash
into stupendous speed. On the
surface'
vehicles moved some inches above the ground itself, sup-ported in
the air
by some method which we could not
determine. Bridges stretched
across the cities carrying on slender cables
what appeared to be roadways. As
we
watched we saw a vivid flash in the sky, and one of the largest
bridges
collapsed into a tangle of girders and
cables. Another flash, and
most of the city itself vanished into
incandescent gas. Above the ruins
towered a
strangely evil-looking red cloud, roughly in the shape of a
mushroom -
miles high.
Our pictures faded, and we saw again the group
of men who had planned the
"Time Capsules". They had
decided that now was
the time to seal them. We saw the ceremonies, we saw
the "stored memories"
being
fitted into the machine. We heard the speech of farewell which told us
···
-
"The People of the Future, if there
be any!" - that Mankind was about to
destroy itself, or such seemed
probable, "and within these vaults
(hvelv)
are stored such records of our achievements and follies (dårskap)
as may
benefit those of a future race
who have the intelligence to discover it, and
having discovered it, be able
to understand it."
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