Lemuria, Burt Clinchandhill [adventure books to read .TXT] 📗

“I guess that most of the time, people survive these trips,” Bishop remarked.

“I guess they do,” Lindsey answered. “How could they otherwise have survived all these years?” She smiled.

“Evolution,” Bishop answered. “Survival of the fittest.”

“Speaking of survival,” Ignatowski added, “you were going to tell us more about Haeckel and his theories.”

“Yes,” Bishop responded. “And I would already have if you hadn’t slept on the planes.” Bishop smiled, and Lindsey and Ignatowski gave him half-hearted smiles. “Where to start?” Bishop asked.

“Start with the T,” Ignatowski suggested.

“Trinil, yes. Darwin thought that the first modern men originated in the warmer climate of the tropics because, during evolution, from ape to men, the furry coat almost completely vanished. Thus, he placed the first form of modern men in Africa. On the other hand, at around the same time, Ernst Haeckel—and you must know that there were no fossilized remains recovered at the time—somehow figured Asia to be a more likely place for modern life to have originated and where we could probably find—”

“The missing link,” Ignatowski interrupted him. “You said so before, but why did he think it originated in Asia?”

“Nobody knows, but Haeckel described the remains of the Pithecanthropus Alalus in great detail, and that spoke to the imagination of a young Dutch paleoanthropologist named Eugène Dubois. Haeckel somehow convinced Dubois to travel to the Dutch East Indies—Java Island, to be precise—to do fieldwork in a small town called Sangiran. Again, it remains a mystery why Haeckel picked that specific place. Back in 1887, when Dubois visited the place, it was nothing more than a sandpit. Today, Sangiran is recognized as one of the most important archaeological excavation sites in the world, where over half of the world’s known hominid fossils were found. Dubois did some preliminary research, but when he didn’t find any fossils of interest, and against Haeckel’s direction, but on local advice, he traveled to Trinil, some fifty miles east.”

The driver suddenly shouted. “Look.” He slowed down and pointed outside. Next to the road, in the middle of nowhere, a coffee stand emerged. “You want coffee?” he asked Bishop. “Delicious specialty, Java coffee from the local Ijen volcano, grows at forty-five hundred feet on the mountainside. Very special.”

Bishop looked at the other two.

“I think we better stick to the plan and first visit the museum. Maybe get a cup of coffee there,” Lindsey said. “After that, we can check in to the hotel and get some rest and dinner.”

“Agreed,” Ignatowski said. “Let’s not waste any daylight.”

“Of course, to the museum,” the driver agreed.

“Where was I?” Bishop asked as the driver sped up.

“Dubois traveled to Trinil,” Lindsey reminded him.

“Yes, he did indeed. From 1887 to 1895, he dug in several places in Trinil. In 1891, he discovered a skullcap, thighbone and a few teeth. Until today these remains are among the oldest hominid ever. About half a million years old. He identified the remains with Haeckel’s Pithecanthropus label. Experts later reclassified them as Homo erectus, and now the remains are best known as the Java Man. Haeckel, on the other hand, was quite content with the find and published his paper on the finding of the Pithecanthropus Alalus. The missing link.”

“Amazing, and by that, completing Darwin’s theory of human evolution,” Ignatowski concluded.

“Exactly,” Bishop agreed. “Though not without debate at the time.”

“And now?” Lindsey asked.

“Now? Well, based on Darwin’s work, evolution was generally portrayed as a linear process, a straight line. Now we think, or know, that the evolution of men, over time, occurred much more spread over the world, like branches on a tree.”

“So, Darwin was wrong?” Ignatowski asked.

Bishop smiled. “Did you know Darwin, in his most famous work ‘On the Origin of Species,’ wrote but a single sentence about human evolution? ‘Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history,’” he quoted.

“All very interesting,” Ignatowski murmured. “But what has this all got to do with disappearing tribes?”

Bishop grinned.

“You have an idea?” Lindsey asked.

Bishop tilted his head. “I think it’s your time to fulfill a promise.”

“Jennifer.” She sighed.

“Jennifer,” Bishop repeated.

“Soon,” Lindsey said.

Bishop shook his head.

For the next hour, the Beetle passed ox-pulled cars, dangerously heavily loaded motorcycles and small villages where houses were defined by a roof over wooden beams. Suddenly, the driver made a sharp right turn onto a small concrete road with large potholes, bouncing the passengers in their seats.

“Damn.” Ignatowski grabbed his head as it hit the car’s roof.

“I think we’re almost there.” Bishop glimpsed a concrete statue along the roadside depicting two naked figures—ancient man and woman—in front of a volcano. The man stood with what looked like a hunting knife in his hand, and the woman sat, leaning over a fire. Probably cooking, Bishop thought. Nothing ever changes. The car drove another quarter mile before it stopped at the end of the road.

“We’re here,” the driver called out.

Two open iron gates marked the entrance, but there were no signs. Next to the gates, two large bamboo sticks were placed with alternating red and white, triangular-shaped flags. Outside the iron gates were no fences, not even a wire, guarding the terrain.

“Those gates are pretty useless.” Ignatowski frowned, pointing at them.

“I guess they don’t need them,” Lindsey said.

“Are you sure we’re here?” Lindsey asked, looking for signs indicating this was the Trinil Museum.

“This is the museum and the original terrain where Eugene Dubois did his excavations?” Bishop asked.

“Sure,” the driver said. “Not a problem. Just walk inside. You will be joined. Please, I wait here.” He pointed at the small security booth ten feet behind the gates.

“I think we better go,” Bishop suggested. After gathering their things, they got out. The sun burned hot, and from the look at the barren lands surrounding the museum, it burned hot most of the time. They approached the security booth, but there was no one inside.

“Just go on,” the driver yelled, leaning out of his car’s window.

As they made their way onto the path, the driver took out a satellite phone from the glove compartment and switched