I found this story in Volume Ten of the Childrens Encycolpedia published by The Amalgamated Press, Ltd, London. Originated and Edited by Arthur Mee.
I found it hard to date the book, but it is post-WWII - if only just - and its very typical British middle-class teaching. The wonderful thing is the fact that in the same book that asks the question 'What is truth?' It also lists nursery-ryhmes and basic lessons in French and Logorhythms (sp?).
This story caught my attention. It seems very contrived and inconistant with itself but I reasoned it must have some basis in fact. I Googled it to no avail, it seems this hole has disappeared. Any ideas?
(copied directly from the source)
I found it hard to date the book, but it is post-WWII - if only just - and its very typical British middle-class teaching. The wonderful thing is the fact that in the same book that asks the question 'What is truth?' It also lists nursery-ryhmes and basic lessons in French and Logorhythms (sp?).
This story caught my attention. It seems very contrived and inconistant with itself but I reasoned it must have some basis in fact. I Googled it to no avail, it seems this hole has disappeared. Any ideas?
What is the Great Hole in the Kalahari Desert?
The Kalahari Desert of South Africa is an almost waterless waste west of Rhodesia and stretching to Namaqualand which has little water or vegitation and supports only the native Bushmen. It has been and is traversed notably by a trekking community which established itself on the farther side of the of it in fertile country, but one of its curiosities is so well hidden and off the beaten track that few have ever seen it. It is a mighty hole hald a square mile in area with nearly perpendicular walls and more than 160 feet deep.
So cunningly concealed are the edges of this pit that the wild beasts of the Kalahari sometimes miss their footing and fall to the rocky bottom, and once a man was trapped within for three years.
He was Erlanger, a German who was trekking across the desert with a Boer friend Oosthuizen, and they outspanned near the brink of the great pit. During the night Erlanger's wagon slid down a slope near the edge, burst through the slender barrier of bushes at the edge of the pit and shot down into it. By a miracle he escaped death, though stunned and bruised. but Oosthuizen, believing that he must have perished, moved away from the terrifying place without taking any steps to find him.
Erlanger was in the most dreadful situation that can be imagined. When he found strength enough to look about him he found there was a small stream beginning on the north wall of the pit and running along the bottom to disappear into a cavern. So at any rate he had water, and for weeks he lived on the carefully hoarded probisions in his shattered wagon.
One night a crash woke him and he found that six hartebeestes had fallen into the pit and had been killed. He secured the meat, dried it, and lived on it for many days. But there were many more days to come, for he lived in this prison more than three years. He would have died if it had not been that from time to time other animals fell into the crater: eland, giraffe, even an elephant and rhinocerous. The end of this tale of courage in privation is not a happy one.
Erlanger found it impossible to climb the steep sides of the pit, he then attempted to make a ladder of pegs out of the ruins of the wagon. Many were the failures, but at last, after nearly three years of his solitary confinement, he reached the lip of the hole only to find himself still alone in the desert that had not even the water which had sustained him in the pit. He was almost perishing of thirst when five Bushmen found him and got him back to civilisation. He died two months later, living long enough only to tell his strange and almost incredible tale.
(copied directly from the source)
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