The Plant Hunters: Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains

by Mayne Reid

For what purpose? you will ask. To make their hair grow? Nothing of the sort. The hair of all three, from late neglect, was long enough—quite as long as they could have wished it. Caspar’s curls hung over his shoulders, and Ossaroo’s snaky black tresses dangled down his back like the tail of a horse. Even Karl’s silken locks were long enough to have satisfied the most romantic of refugees. No. They wanted the bear’s fat, not for their hair, but for their kitchen. They wanted it to cook with, for one thing, but a still more important use they intended to apply it to,—and that was for making candles! For both of the above purposes they had need of the bear’s fat, since the other animals which they were accustomed to hunt and kill were chiefly ruminant animals, with very little fat upon them, and never enough of it to cook their own flesh.

You who live in a land where there is plenty of lard and butter, can hardly understand what it is to be without these essential articles of the cuisine. In most civilised countries that valuable pachyderm,—the pig,—supplies the desideratum of lard; and you will scarce appreciate the importance of this article until you have travelled in a country where the hog is not found among the domesticated animals. In such places the smallest morsel of fat is highly prized, for without it, good cooking is a dry and difficult business.

Such considerations as these determined the fate of the bear. The hunters well knew that animals of this kind yield large quantities of the very best fat, which they then stood in want of, and would need still more during the long nights of winter. Perhaps there might be more than one bear in the cave; so much the better; one or more, they must be attacked and killed.

But there was another reason why they had determined to enter the cave; one of far greater consideration than the killing of the bear. It was Caspar who had suggested it.

“Why,” asked he, “why might we not get out by this very cave? What if it should prove to run upward, and have an entrance above, or on the other side of the mountain?”

Both Karl and Ossaroo were startled at the suggestion. The idea put all of them into a flurry of excitement.

“I have read of such things,” continued Caspar; “of great caverns that extended from one side of a mountain to the other. There is one in America that has been traced for twelve miles; the Mammoth, I mean! This might be one of the same kind. You say you saw far into it, Karl? Let us explore it then, and see where it leads to.”

It was but a slight hope, still it was a hope; and it could not cost much trouble to give the cave a thorough exploration. It would be but a small matter compared with the construction of ladders to scale the cliff; besides, they were now convinced by a farther examination of the precipice that this was not practicable, and had quite abandoned all thought of it. Should the cavern prove to be of vast extent, and have another opening elsewhere than in the valley, they might escape from their terrible prison, and their troubles would be at an end.

With such hopes,—that were indeed little better than fancies,—they consoled themselves for the moment.

It was resolved, then, that on the morrow the cave was to be entered. For all the assistance they would have from the light of the sun, they might as well have begun their exploration at night. But they were not ready to begin. Torches had to be procured; and a notched tree by which to ascend the cliff; and to obtain these required time. They would have them ready by the morrow.