De Souza’s Journal is clear so we can now
only wonder. THE CRYSTAL IS SINGING were
the words that came from his lips! The young explorer then tells us how,
startled by such seemingly incomprehensible revelation, he bent over the man
only to find his arm powerfully gripped. Raising his head the man stared
directly into his eyes, repeating the words with a force and power that came
unexpected… THE CRYSTAL IS SINGING… before
falling back dead on the matting inside his hut.
The Journal itself is stored in the
archives of the Spanish-American Institute in Madrid and is available for
consultation by researchers and scholars should the Director find such a
request reasonable. Understanding it is relatively straightforward given that
it is an account of his experiences given by the explorer himself. Even so,
geographical location then was not at all that it is today and makes little
sense set against the advances of our modern technology. What is undoubtedly
puzzling, for it seems to come out of nowhere, is his account of meeting this
individual and those singular almost magical words about crystal. What on earth
does it mean? De Souza himself comments on their strangeness but makes no
attempt to consider the matter in depth. From the perspective of an 18th
century Spanish explorer it’s all too simple enough. He writes down what he’s
heard. The man’s dead and cannot be
questioned. Why bother then with any conjecture? Intriguing as the words seem
speculation can only be pointless. Gold… silver… precious gems and territorial
acquisition, these things he understands! Singing Crystal? Well the man was
indeed feverish. Desperately sick.
Time perhaps for a little digression. Most
of us know about the 16th and 17th century Spanish
intrusion into central and South America and their conquest and despoliation of
the civilisations they found there. We all remember those magical sounding
names from our history lessons at school. The Aztecs and Incas, Pizarro, Cortes
and Montezuma. The grim Conquistadores and the tribes and civilisations they
laid waste in their Conquest and Colonisation of Latin America! Words and names
we associated with another part of the planet known for its mighty rivers and
jungles, giant snakes and spiders before we forgot them and went out with our
mates for a lager! For many of us though those names and places came to mean
something. Conjured up something else if you like. A single word describes it
all… Adventure!
There were of course many expeditions into
Central and South America besides those of the Cortes and Pizarro. Mostly of
exploration and territorial discovery rather than plain simple conquest for
loot. The school history books only recall the big names. Those that
reconfigured the Continent in their image as they carved out Spain’s Imperial
portfolio in brutality and blood. Others, equally interesting, are perhaps more
the subject of scholarship than anything else. When I first became acquainted
with Olivares’ weird muttering I wondered at first whether I’d heard right. De
Souza’s Journal had recorded his search for the lost expedition of Manuel de
Fraga that vanished in the high Andes somewhere near the border with Peru.
After weeks spent traversing high plateau de Fraga found himself in a
singularly barren region. The few Indians they came across barely co-existing
with nature, speaking in a dialect that none of them knew. Gifts of food helped
open a dialogue. Slow, laborious at first as he records, but gradually by signs
and gestures they learned of a great earth tremor in a region of mountainous
peaks not too far to the north. Travelling there proved tedious but it was only
then that they learned for themselves. There far below was a vast scene of
desolation. A whole series of gigantic landslips had engulfed dozens of
valleys, burying them in a terrain of rock and ice and cutting them off forever
from the outside world. Here then was how Manuel de Fraga’s men had met their
end. Later, much further, on they’d encountered Olivares.
Somehow he’d survived. Perhaps having been
on a ridge somewhere as an out-rider he’d avoided the great cataclysm. Been
left on the other side and avoided the fate of his comrades by descending
eventually to the forests below.
THE
CRYSTAL IS SINGING… I’d read De Souza’s account in
Madrid but was left puzzled. Almost enthralled by the words. What did they
mean? They sounded like the raving of a madman, that is until I thought
further. The word CRYSTAL was used in
the singular, Crystal, not crystals! This wasn’t some raving about crystals per
se but crystal itself. Quartz Crystal perhaps or Rose Quartz. Some type of
crystal but what? Interestingly enough this particular location in the
Bolivia-Peru Andes region was never noted for containing any reserve of Rose
Quartz or Quartz Crystal itself. Certainly not in any historical record through
mining. Such reserves are to be found elsewhere, mainly Brazil which has in
modern times produced large quantities of massive Rose Quartz but rarely in the
form of crystals which are indeed classed as scarce. Quartz crystals on the
other hand are commonplace in that country. Rock crystal however is another
story altogether. It is comprehensively massive with no known crystal habit.
Brazil possesses a certain amount but nothing compared to deposits found in the
Peruvian high Andes and those of Bolivia as evidenced in the cultures of
ancient civilisations found in those areas such as those who preceded the Incas,
and in Mexico the Aztecs. Skulls carved from rock crystal not only feature in
legend and form part of their history but have come down to us today as the
modern products of artists and craftsmen. They were not simply features of
legend but indeed formed part of ceremonial ritual.
Such ritual and ceremony is not a matter
directly concerning us here. Its importance and the use made of rock crystal
however points to the existence of such deposits available for use so that when
I became aware of De Souza’s Journal and Olivares dying words the existence of
the mineral in such abundance took on an added significance. THE CRYSTAL IS SINGING… I again tried to
make sense of it all. Fortunately an extraordinary discovery came to my rescue.
It is sometimes the case that those investigating and exploring the legends of
ancient civilisations almost lost to our modern era can search for clues months
even years on end without finding any connections or any real meaning until
suddenly, purely by chance they come across something that seems insignificant
and is almost put by then in a moment of unexpected inspiration a flash blinding
intuition hits home and with it a real joy of insight.
It happens to all of us reader. To you and
to so many others, and it happened to me. I’d been rummaging in the basement
archives of the badly run down Museum of Ethnicity associated with one of the
University departments in La Paz, the whole place covered in dust and many
ancient tablets and manuscripts there long unattended. It was simply an old
habit, fuelled by a deep personal curiosity, to thumb through just about
everything. See what I could find as it were. Anything, anything might turn up.
It was my own personal philosophy. Part of my character. I just didn’t know
what I might find. It had of course happened to me before, time back when I’d
been rummaging through some old packing crates in the basement of a warehouse
in Bulawayo, South Central Africa that belonged to a friend. Suddenly I saw
something and out of one I pulled a whole series of beautiful, perfectly
crafted miniature axes and spears that I knew were important. They turned out
to be the ceremonial regalia of the last King of the Malagasy. My friend needed
dollars and let me have them for just a few hundred. There they’d been at the
bottom of a crate. Something he’d got hold of and forgotten years back and was
now only too glad to have the money like it was for free!
The same kind of thing happened in that
dusty old basement in Bolivia. With the light not all that great I began going
over the tablets pertaining to the old pre-Inca civilisations. What the hell
they were doing there was a mystery. Obviously they’d all been collected many
years earlier and dumped. There’d obviously been revolutionary changes of
Government, curators of museums coming and going. Disappearing when new regimes
put in their own people who couldn’t be bothered with the work of the old, so
collections of yester-year were left to gather dust and be quietly forgotten.
It was in such a situation that I found myself. A nice little gift in someone’s
back pocket and there I was, sitting on a wooden crate like the curious gringo
I was then unexpectedly the whole cultural history of a people in tablet and
script! Great mountain peaks, valleys, displaced rock and boulder moraine along
with the story of what hit me as an extraordinary legend recorded long, long
before Christ, the Assyrians, Babylonians or anyone else!
Talk about staggering! It was like I’d had
a rush of blood to my head, stepped out of the crease and hit the bowler for
six right over the stand! There it all was! The great eruption and avalanche! The deep powerful rumbling from the bowels
of the earth and the Legend of the Singing Rock Crystal! I could scarcely
believe what I saw. Almost immediately Olivares’ words came to mind… the great
earthquake and eruption and the lost expedition of Manuel de Fraga high in the
Andes! The connection I’d chanced on was inescapable.
… The
great tremor far back in time and the cataclysm so many centuries later were
the same seismic phenomena. Passing through the rock crystal deposits it had
created a wave which, when finally released, sounded an extraordinary almost
magical chord. A singular note so powerful, so intense, that it seemed nothing
human. A great cry as it were of the spirit, straight from the depths of the
earth…
At first it seemed barely credible but the
facts as they stood were irrefutable. Thanks to a dying man’s words and the
clues from ancient pre-Inca tablets I had established a historical timeline
linking Rock Crystal and the seismic activity of the region with the authentic
musical note inherent in the culture of its people. A continuing Lost Chord
like a voice into the past now rediscovered as the authentic note of its song.
Olivares wasn’t so deluded after all. He’d escaped the great cataclysm of his
time only to die in the jungle and in his last words he gave up the clue. The
crystal was indeed singing and had he been with his comrades down in
the valley he would never have survived to give up the secret that led to my
discovery in legend.
As for myself I hope that one day I might
have the good fortune to be somewhere up on those peaks, safe from any
disaster, so that I might hear and likewise marvel at the deep wondrous sound
of that ancient lost chord. It’s unlikely, but adventurer that I am I always like
to think that there are possibilities!
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