at watered the plain below and fed the morasses in the
lowlands at the country's edge. Here the three took up their temporary
abode where Tarzan's instruction in the language of his companions
progressed more rapidly than while on the march.

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. Already he knew the names of his companions and the
common names of the fauna and flora with which they had most often come
in contact.

Ta-den, he of the hairless, white skin, having assumed the role of
tutor, prosecuted his task with a singleness of purpose that was
reflected in his pupil's rapid mastery of Ta-den's mother tongue.
Om-at, the hairy black, also seemed to feel that there rested upon his
broad shoulders a portion of the burden of responsibility for Tarzan's
education, with the result that either one or the other of them was
almost constantly coaching the ape-man during his waking hours. The
result was only what might have been expected--a rapid assimilation of
the teachings to the end that before any of them realized it