The cave gave evidence of having harbored other manlike forms
in the past. Remnants of a crude, rock fireplace remained and the
walls and ceiling were blackened with the smoke of many fires.
Scratched in the soot, and sometimes deeply into the rock beneath,
were strange hieroglyphics and the outlines of beasts and birds and
reptiles, some of the latter of weird form suggesting the extinct
creatures of Jurassic times. Some of the more recently made
hieroglyphics Tarzan's companions read with interest and commented
upon, and then with the points of their knives they too added to
the possibly age-old record of the blackened walls.
Tarzan's curiosity was aroused, but the only explanation at which
he could arrive was that he was looking upon possibly the world's
most primitive hotel register. At least it gave him a further insight
into the development of the strange creatures with which Fate had
thrown him. Here were men with the tails of monkeys, one of them
as hair covered as any fur-bearing brute of the lower orders, and
yet it was evident that they possessed not only a spoken, but a
written language. The former he was slowly mastering and at this
new evidence of unlooked-for civilization in creatures possessing
so many of the physical attributes of beasts, Tarzan's curiosity
was still further piqued and his desire quickly to master their
tongue strengthened, with the result that he fell to with even
greater assiduity to the task he had set himself.
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