"Hyne,.C.J.Cutcliffe.-.Lost.Continent.-.Lostc10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hyne C J Cutcliffe)

where we had got such a baking from the sun the day before.

Of course these caves were not easy to come at, or else they
would have been raided years before. Coppinger, who on principle
makes out he knows all about these things, says that in the old
Guanche days they had ladders of goatskin rope which they could
pull up when they were at home, and so keep out undesirable
callers; and as no other plan occurs to me, perhaps he may be
right. Anyway the mouths of the caves were in a more or less level
row thirty feet below the ridge of the cliff, and fifty feet above
the bottom; and Spanish curiosity doesn't go in much where it
cannot walk.

Now laddering such caves from below would have been cumbersome,
but a light knotted rope is easily carried, and though it would
have been hard to climb up this, our plan was to descend on
each cave mouth from above, and then slip down to the foot of
the cliffs, and start again AB INITIO for the next.

Coppinger is plucky enough, and he has a good head on a height,
but there is no getting over the fact that he is portly and
nearer fifty than forty-five. So you can see he must have been
pretty keen. Of course I went first each time, and got into the
cave mouth, and did what I could to help him in; but when you have
to walk down a vertical cliff face fly-fashion, with only a thin
bootlace of a rope for support, it is not much real help the man
below can give, except offer you his best wishes.

I wanted to save him as much as I could, and as the first three
caves I climbed to were small and empty, seeming to be merely
store-places, I asked him to take them for granted, and save
himself the rest. But he insisted on clambering down to each one
in person, and as he decided that one of my granaries was a prison,
and another a pot-making factory, and another a schoolroom for
young priests, he naturally said he hadn't much reliance on my
judgment, and would have to go through the whole lot himself. You
know what these thorough-going archaeologists are for imagination.

But as the day went on, and the sun rose higher, Coppinger began
clearly to have had enough of it, though he was very game, and
insisted on going on much longer than was safe. I must say I
didn't like it. You see the drop was seldom less than eighty feet
from the top of the cliffs. However, at last he was forced to give
it up. I suggested marching off to Santa Brigida forthwith, but he
wouldn't do that. There were three more cave-openings to be looked
into, and if I wouldn't do them for him, he would have to make
another effort to get there himself. He tried to make out he was
conferring a very great favour on me by offering to take a report
solely from my untrained observation, but I flatly refused to look
at it in that light. I was pretty tired also; I was soaked with