RICHARD FREEMAN: Swallowed by the wilderness (Part Two)

Perhaps the strangest case involved an explorer almost forgotten in the modern age, and an equally obscure monster: Peter Grayson was an Oxford-educated businessman who set sail from England in 1917 with six companions. Their destination was the Richtersveld, a mountainous desert in South Africa’s Cape Province.

Stories told of a cave in the mountains known as the Wonder Hole or Bottomless Pit and filled with diamonds. A monster known as the grootslang supposedly guarded it. The grootslang was said to be a huge snake 40-50 feet long, and was said to have eyes like gems.

Some explorers claim to have seen the grootslang. One man told a South African newspaper that he seen such a creature, describing it as a monstrous snake more than 50 feet long. Another said that he saw two such creatures, but that he killed one with his high-powered rifle.

Other witnesses confirm the beast's length as 40 to 50 feet long and tell of 3-foot-wide tracks along the Orange River. Prospectors once followed the track for miles before it disappeared into the river.

Only one man (a prospector called Travis) has supposedly visited the Wonder Hole and lived to tell the tale. According to one account, he dropped his torch into the pit while descending and had to crawl his way back out through pitch darkness. One version tells that he was attacked by the grootslang, but survived by playing dead.

Grayson had consulted old maps and accounts from prospectors before his expedition left. On their first night in the bush, the party was attacked by a lion that killed one man and badly mauled another. A few days later, a third man was bitten by a snake and died. Yet another became seriously ill and begged to be taken back to civilization.

Two of the others took the sick man to the nearest village for medical attention. Grayson pushed on alone and a week later a rescue party found his empty camp. Peter Grayson was never seen again, and local stories had it that the grootslang had eaten him.

The big mistake all of these men made was going it alone. One man against the wilderness might look good on TV survival shows, but in reality it is very poor odds. On any expedition, you should have knowledgeable local guides and travel in a group. A man I know once tried to search for the orang-pendek in the jungles of western Sumatra. I’ve been there three times and can vouch for their deepness and tracklessness. His team consisted of him, his girlfriend and one guide. The guide was not an official park guide and knew very little about the area. The three of them became lost in the jungle for weeks. The man fell down a crevasse and broke several ribs. The ‘guide’ became so scared that he began to cry with fear, sobbing that he would never see his wife and children again. It was only by pure, blind luck that they stumbled into a logging camp and were taken back to civilization.

Remember if you try to do this sort of thing alone, the wilderness is waiting, and it is hungry.