Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms

by Bob Curran

  The experience had left them both badly shaken, and when they returned to Carmel, the first place they went was a saloon in order to get a drink to steady their nerves. One drink led to another, and soon they became embroiled in a brawl in which a man was injured and both were arrested. They were sentenced to a rather harsh 30 days in jail, and so it was well over a month before they got out and gathered together some helpers. By this time, they were unsure of the entrance to the underground world—all they could really remember was that it was somewhere in the area of Trampa Canyon. They searched several locations but could not find the gap in the rock; when they thought they’d found it, it seemed to have been blocked by a recent rock fall. The underground sea with its rotting Viking ship and possible lost treasure would remain down in the darkness for many more years to come.

  Big Sur

  One of the most famous “Lost Worlds” is said to lie in the Big Sur area on Monterey’s south coast. The region known as “the Big Sur wilderness” lies about 25 miles south of Carmel Mission and is presumed to take its name from the Spanish who passed through it in the 16th century—El Grande del Sur, meaning “big river in the south.” According to legend, Indians living along the Little Sur River would sometimes lead Spaniards into the Pico Blanco (White Peak) area of the wilderness from which they would return several days later with their burros laden with raw silver. However, the Indians insisted that they go into the region alone, much to the displeasure of the Spaniards who wanted to see where the silver mine might be.

  In the latter years of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, a mining engineer named Alfred K. Clark came prospecting in the Big Sur area, trying to find the Indian mine. Clark, or Uncle Al, as he was known, was something of an eccentric character; he was a Union Army war veteran who had spent some time prospecting in the West before heading for Monterey. He built a cabin and homesteaded on the South Fork of the Little Sur River. He befriended the last surviving members of the Little Sur Indian tribes and gained the confidence of one who is said to have revealed the location of the silver mine. However, the mine was not where the old man said it was, and on his return from Big Sur, Clark found the Indian had died. Nevertheless, he had enough details to begin a search through the area, which was to take up the remaining years of his life. Searching in the area of the Pico Blanco, Clark found some traces of silver ore and, dreaming of finding the lost mine, he headed northward to seek some financial support for his venture. In San Francisco, Dr. Clarence H. Pearce met with Clark and soon after became his foremost backer. However, after months of back-breaking labor at the place where Clark had found the traces of ore, nothing further had been discovered. Disheartened, some of the backers pulled out, but Clark declared that he would dig on until he found the silver lode. For the rest of his life, he would work around the area of the Pico Blanco, well away from civilization and only coming to town when he needed supplies or to briefly work for local ranchers when he needed money for supplies. He became a legend in the style of the Lost Dutchman—a crazed recluse who lived out in the wilderness.

  “Uncle Al” had, however, made a few friends in the Big Sur area—one of whom was Al Greer who, with his family, had given the old man supplies from time to time. When Clark fell sick, Greer took him into his home and tended to him, suspecting that the old man was dying. What had started out as a fever rapidly developed into pneumonia and, as Greer had guessed, as the spring of 1930 came round, Uncle Al was breathing his last. He gathered the family around his bed and told them that he wished to reveal a secret to them in return for their kindness—a secret that might make them rich.

  He admitted that he’d never found the lost silver mine nor in all his diggings had he ever struck a silver lode, but what he had discovered out in Big Sur was more valuable to historians than silver could ever be. One day while working on some old Indian diggings, Clark had suddenly broken through the wall of an underground shaft that seemed to lead directly into the Pico Blanco. He followed it deep into the mountain where it seemed to split into several tunnels. He followed one that led him into a mysterious room-like chamber, which he began to explore, holding his light in front of him defensively. The cavern was one of a series through which Uncle Al walked cautiously. Stalagmites and stalactites were everywhere, and curiously shaped rocks rose up around him; looking closely, he saw the marks of ancient mortars and picks on the rock walls. Part of the cave had been made by men, he reckoned. He also noticed strange, pale flowers, the like of which he had never seen before, sprouting from between the stones around him and, in a shallow river that he crossed, small pale fish. He touched some of the flower petals and thought they were made of stone.

  Most wondrous of all, he suddenly emerged into a great cavern where there were traces of human or humanoid habitation. Here, the rock walls were covered with curious drawings of all kinds. In fact, one wall seemed to be covered with what looked like a representation of the sky with various constellations marked. Here, too, were drawings of what looked like prehistoric animals and men fighting with sabre-toothed tigers. There were pictographs of what looked like woolly mammoths as well. On the walls and scattered all around were evidences of some sort of settlement, which seemed to stretch back into the darkness; but Clark did not pursue these. Instead he returned to the surface and mentally marked the entrance to the strange underworld.

  Uncle Al died leaving the location of the spot to the family gathered around his bed. However, there was a problem in that the Greer family didn’t believe him. Al Greer simply put it down to the ramblings of a very old man in the grip of a raging fever and dismissed it as a fantasy. Much later, they moved on, but some others who heard the story decided to hunt for the strange lost world on the slopes of Pico Blanco. The tale corresponded with stories of “lost worlds,” large caves in the mountain ranges that might have once contained life. The “stone flowers” that Uncle Al had found in the underground world might well be “gypsum blooms,” called that because of their petal-like appearance, which is produced when a substance known as selenite exudes from the cracks in cavern walls. The small pale fish were probably troglobites, or “blindfish,” which had lost their body pigment due to dwelling in the darkness away from the light. However, although the search was extensive, the entrance was never found. One tunnel might have fit the bill, but that had long caved in. To date, there is no real evidence of Uncle Al’s strange underground world, but it has become so famous that from time to time people still search for it.

  Explorers of the Lost Worlds

  The Monterey Peninsula is rich in such stories of underground realms, mainly cave systems and some allegedly containing fabulous treasure. Such fortunes have often been linked to Californian and Montereyan badmen such as the robber and rustler Joaquin Murieta (“The Robin Hood of El Dorado”) or, slightly earlier, the dreaded Pacific pirate Hippolyte Bouchard. Bouchard, who had served in a number of naval campaigns under the celebrated Guillermo Brown, the Irish-born first admiral of the Argentinean Navy, was reputed to know the location of many of these interior worlds, and used them to store his loot. In November 1818, he attacked the coastal fortress of El Castillo where three Spanish treasure-ships were supposedly sheltering. After a brief defiance, the garrison commander and de facto governor of Alta California, Pablo Vincente Sola, withdrew his forces to Monterey and left Bouchard to loot the ships at will. What became of the riches that he plundered from them is unknown, but there is a legend that he took them to a cavern system somewhere further along the coast, where he concealed them, and where they still lie to this day. There is a persistent story that in the early 1920s, a geologist, exploring somewhere near Cypress Point on the northern end of the Peninsula, blundered into a series of vast underground caverns, one of which held three skeletons, some old, rusted flintlock rifles, and several large strongboxes. As is usual in these tales, he is said to have returned to the surface, but when he came back with help, he couldn’t find the spot. It has been suggested that the strongboxes h
eld part of the treasure that Bouchard had pillaged from the ships at El Castillo, although some others argue that it was the haunt of another adventurer, the English pirate Francis Drake. Similar stories are attributed to Murieta, who raided and plundered through both California and Monterey, stealing money and cattle which he then sold. Although he is sometimes portrayed as a kind of “robber philanthropist” in the style of Robin Hood, there is little doubt that he was a villain of some stature. Together with his band, known as the Five Joaquins—Joaquin Batellier, Joaquin Carrillo, Joaquin Ocomorenia, Joaquin Valenzuela, and the fifth “Joaquin,” Manuel Garcia (“Three-Fingered Jack”), he was responsible for the majority of the murders and serious robberies in the Sierra Nevada region of California in the early 19th century. He was allegedly killed around 1853 by Captain Harry S. Love of the California Rangers (although this death is frequently disputed—it is also said that he died in bed in Mexico), but not before he had deposited vast amounts of loot in underground “worlds” (cavern systems) all across the Californian Sierras. From time to time, there have been claims of miners finding these “stashes” (together with the loot accumulated by another Californian outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez), and the “lost worlds” in which they are hidden.

  There is also the persistent Indian legend of the “Lost Caves (or Lost Worlds) of the Golden Quills.” This refers to two huge caves reputedly located near Carmel Mission, which had reputedly been extended by Indian labor. They were said to contain ledges that held the hollowed-out feather quills of many birds, into which the local Indians had poured large quantities of gold dust and flakes of pure gold. (This was also done by the Indians of New Mexico in an attempt to hide their wealth from their enemies or from invaders.) However, legend says that these “Lost Caves” have long been stripped of their wealth by robbers and adventurers, and interest in the legend has therefore long since waned.

  J.C. Brown

  The most famous of all the Californian “Lost World” stories however comes from the Cascade Mountains in the north of the state and hints that there may indeed be some sort of subterranean civilization lurking down there. The tale concerns a rather suspicious individual named J.C. Brown.

  No one is sure what Brown’s profession really was. Some sources state that he was a geologist, others a mining engineer, and others a prospector. In 1904, he was hired by the English-based Lord Cowdray Mining Company to scout in various areas of the Cascade Range in order to site prospective mines. It is also unclear as to what he was looking for—it may have been gold, coal, or something else. Brown made at least two visits to the Cascades—the first seems to have been uneventful, and he found nothing; the second seems to have been much more surprising.

  In a lonely mountain area, Brown entered a narrow canyon that ended in a large and curiously shaped rock. A recent landslide in the area had moved this boulder slightly, and as he came up the canyon, Brown was aware of something like a wind blowing out of the cliff ahead. Imagining it to be an old Indian mine, he investigated further. Squeezing between the edge of the boulder and the cliff face, he suddenly found himself in a man-made tunnel that led down into the Earth. Still believing that he was in Indian workings, he made his way down only to find that the tunnel ended in a narrow chimney, which went down into the dark. Once again, Brown continued downward, easing himself down the chimney and into another short tunnel. He stepped out into a mammoth that extended away in front of him. Amazingly, the entire cavern seemed to be lined with sheets of beaten copper and contained a number of seemingly ancient artifacts. Here were shields, swords, necklaces, and large statues of what seemed to be ancient men. The copper-lined walls also seemed to have pictures on them showing ancient battles and cities on fire. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen, and yet as he stared at it, Brown had the distinct feeling that he was being watched. Nevertheless, he ventured further and into a second cave. Here lay the bones of what appeared to be gigantic men, the remains almost twice the size of an ordinary human. Some were dressed in fragments of armor and some seemed to be clutching ancient weapons with their bony hands. The feeling of being watched grew ever stronger as Brown progressed even further. Beyond the cavern of skeletons, another rock shaft descended into the darkness and, as he stood on its rim, Brown thought that he detected a faint movement far below. He turned, retraced his steps, and fled to the surface.

  Although he told a few friends what he had found, he did not report his discovery to his employers, the Lord Cowdray Mining Company. Similar to so many other people, he may have been afraid that they would lay claim to the find themselves. Astonishingly, he left California and did not return to resume his quest for 30 years! He returned to the region in 1934 and apparently there were still some people living there who remembered his strange story, although none had gone up to check it. Brown went up into the region to check his location and then returned to gather together a party and purchase some mining tools.

  He agreed to meet with a company of speculators late one evening in the middle of summer, but he never showed up, and he was never heard from again. His room (in a local rooming house) was checked, but nothing was found. All his clothes and possessions were still there and wherever J.C. Brown had gone, he had departed in a hurry. There was one curious twist to the tale, however. Brown’s room was on the second floor of the building and, as no one had seen him leave by the door, the only way he could have left the boarding lodge was through the upstairs window. By this time Brown was now an elderly man and crippled with pains, so nobody could see how he could have done it. There was another ominous clue: Under the window of Brown’s room was the footprint of a giant man etched into the soft soil! It was as if some giant had simply stood outside his window and had drawn him out of the room. To this day, the fate of J.C. Brown remains an unsolved mystery.

  Of course, cynics may say that Brown hadn’t found anything at all up in the Cascades and that when he was put “on the spot,” he slipped away unseen, perhaps aided by an accomplice. But those who spoke to him in 1934 stated that he was determined to return to the mysterious cavern, and had even hired several armed men to go with him.

  Some have said that the location of the entrance to Brown’s “Lost World” lay somewhere in Siskiyou County—famous for coal mining—and that it is somehow connected to Mount Shasta, which lies close by.

  So, are there giants—either cavemen or advanced survivors from a sunken realm—living in some lightless kingdom beneath our feet? Certainly there are great caverns down there—caves that can perhaps boast an internal atmosphere and perhaps some form of plant and animal life. And who knows, maybe once in a while they can carry away some of us who dwell on the surface, taking us back to their underground world, just as they may have done with J.C. Brown.

  18

  The Lair of Judaculla

  While, according to several tales and legends, numerous civilizations may lurk in the depths below us, there might be something else down there as well. Deep caves, dark holes in the ground, and deep, gloomy gullies have long been the abode of monsters and awful supernatural things. Such places are the home of dragons, monstrous worms, and even flesh-eating ogres who terrify, attack, and devour those who venture too close. If these caverns are in remote or isolated areas (as many of them tend to be), then this lends an additional sense of mystery and terror to them, and it seems to make their supposed denizens even more fearsome. Thus, the brave hero goes off to fight the monstrous creature in some near inaccessible and blasted place well away from the haunt of humans. The idea of a remote and largely unknown area where monsters dwell is well established within the human psyche.

  Although today we tend to think of America as being a highly technologically developed country, there are still such remote and frightful areas scattered all through its landscape. Lonely lakes in the Rockies, or dark swamps deep in Louisiana are said to harbor terrible creatures that are often hostile toward man. Indeed, many such areas have become the subject or horror and monster films through the years. I
n many instances, such locations have acquired fanciful names that link them to supernatural entities of places—Hell’s Gutter, The Devil’s Courthouse, Devil’s Hole, Satan’s Gatehouse, and so forth—and are regarded with awe and trepidation by those who live around them. Strangely shaped trees and rocks often add to the air of threat and danger around such places and give an edge to their supernatural reputations. In a number of cases the term “Devil” not only refers to the infernal ruler, but to some terrible monster that is supposed to dwell in such locations—the Jersey “Devil,” the “Devil of the Mammoth Cave” (in Kentucky), or “The Devil’s Lake” (the Rockies and several other locations). Sometimes this creature takes on physical shape and sometimes it is just an invisible presence that might be nonetheless rather frightening. In some cases, the monster was even worshipped as a god or supernatural figure at the place where it was supposed to dwell.