CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. z 7 



CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. 



By W. H. LAKEABEE. 



STORIES of men who lived or worked in caves abound in his- 

 tory, mythology, and folk-lore tales. The youthful imagina- 

 tion is charmed with accounts of robbers' caves, from that of the 

 forty thieves down to those described in Gil Bias and those which 

 are associated with the robber period of the history of the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley. Mythology furnishes caves of giants, those to 

 which heroes have resorted, and the homes of supernatural beings 

 or of gnomes like the Niebelungen and the " little people." Such 

 stories are suggested by the obvious fact that a cave may afford a 

 safe and convenient place of refuge when no better is at hand ; 

 and their imaginative features are the outcome of the rarity or 

 remoteness of experiences of cave-life within historic times dis- 

 tance lending enchantment to the view. 



Tribes of cave-dwelling men, or troglodytes, are described by 

 ancient writers as having lived in Egypt, Ethiopia, on the borders 

 of the Red Sea, and in the Caucasus. The Red Sea region was 

 called by the Greeks from this fact Troglodytice. Some of the 

 ancient caves in Arabia are still occupied by Bedouins. 



The caves of the troglodytes near Ain Tarsil, in Morocco, 

 which have been visited by Balanza and Sir Joseph Hooker, and 

 described by a correspondent of the London Times, are situated 

 in a narrow gorge, the cliffs of which rise almost perpendicularly 

 from a deep valley, and are cut in the solid rock at a considerable 

 height from the ground. In some places they are in single tiers, 

 and in other places two or three tiers, one above the other, and 

 inaccessible except by ropes and ladders. The entrances give ac- 

 cess to rooms of comfortable size, furnished with windows, which 

 were in some cases connected with other smaller rooms, also fur- 

 nished with windows. The appearance of the caves, attesting that 

 great pains were taken to secure comfort, is hardly consistent with 

 the conception of the troglodytes as savages, which has been drawn 

 from Hanno's account of them. Caves have been much used for 

 burials, and have suggested the form of various artificial burial- 

 places. The ancient Egyptians used natural caves or hollowed 

 out artificial ones, preparing elaborate suites of chambers, ante- 

 chambers, and recesses, and adorning them with brilliant paint- 

 ings and art-works of religious significance. The recovery and 

 exploration of these tombs constitute one of the most interesting 

 and profitable branches of modern archaeological research. The 

 most ancient real-estate transaction recorded in a historical book 

 is the purchase of the cave of Machpelah from the children of 

 Heth by Abraham, to be his family burial-place ; and it is still 



