I grew up on a steady diet of Edgar Rice Burroughs stories—the Tarzan books, John Carter of Mars, and even the Earth's Core and Venus books. I haven't read any of those books for many years, and I suspect that reading them again might destroy some of my respect for them. However, something I read in Jon Zeigler's section of the last issue of POD triggered an idea. I decided to sit down and try to come up with as many alternate histories as I could that created Burroughs-style populated lost cities, using it as a brainstorming devise. That's what this essay is all about. 

I decided to start out by following in Burroughs' footsteps and trying to populate Africa with lost cities. Unfortunately, I found it a little tough to come up with much in the way of original lost cities in Africa. Part of the problem is that my African History is very rusty. Also, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Allan Quartermain mined that vein rather thoroughly. Oh well, here is what I came up with: 

The Lost City of the Ashanti: That's fairly self-explanatory. The Ashanti kingdom of West Africa (in what was Ghana last time I checked) was one of the more powerful and cohesive of the West African states. It fell to the British in the scramble for Africa, after putting up a reasonably good fight. What if a die-hard remnant of the Ashanti, including some members of the Ashanti ruling family, found a remote, fertile valley and hid from British rule there, keeping up the old customs and religion until they were discovered during the Tarzan era—maybe the 1920's or 30's? You could actually play that game with just about any of the major kingdoms of Africa at the time of European colonization—with die-hard Dahomey, Zulus, and half a dozen others isolating themselves and attempting to preserve their old culture without European interference. The problem is that the Europeans were very efficient at seeking out such would-be hold-outs and bringing them into the European system—at least I think they were. I suppose that by definition we wouldn't know about a truly successful lost city of this type. 

The Lost City of the Kongo: My African history is a tad rusty, but I recall that the Kongo royal family and many of the people became Christians during the time when Portugal was the major European power along the African coast. As I recall it, that kingdom eventually disintegrated and was taken over by its non-Christian neighbors. I suppose you could have die-hard Christians from the Kongo finding a stronghold and surviving until European colonization. 

The Lost City of the Christian Nubians: The Nubian Christian kingdoms, unlike the Ethiopians, were overwhelmed by the Moslems to their north. Give them a charismatic ruler, the proverbial isolated, fertile valley, and let them survive until European colonization. 

The Lost City of the Songhai: The last in a long series of large African kingdoms in the interior of West Africa, the Songhai were conquered by Morocco in the late 1500's. Their empire disintegrated under Moroccan rule, and some sources claim that the secret of the source of Songhai's gold was lost. So, you get a prince of Songhai who is in on the gold secret, a die-hand faction of Songhai, and an isolated enough stretch of their territory (presumably near the site of the gold) and let it be discovered after European colonization.

 The Lost City of the Boers: Pretty self-explanatory. A faction of Boers is determined to avoid British rule, and they trek to some god-forsaken corner of Africa where they establish a Boer mini-state. 

The Lost City of the Khoisan: Okay, a lost city might be stretching it a bit here, but the idea is that semi-acculturated people from the Khoisan tribes (Bushmen, Hottentots) around the Cape Colony in South Africa trek north to find a land of their own and become isolated in the usual isolated, fertile valley or mesa or whatever. Some groups of Khoisan did use their access to horses and guns to try to push north ahead of the European frontier, so there is some potential here. 

The Lost Valley of the Australopithecines: Several novels recently have had Australopithecines surviving in a remote part of Africa. That's a stretch, but maybe we can make it a little bit plausible. Australopithecines make it across the ocean to Madagascar, where they rule the island until modern men settle there sometime after the time of Christ? They'd only have to survive for another 1500 or so years to make contact with Europeans (assuming that they didn't somehow change history so that Europe didn't develop the same way). I just have to figure out a plausible way to get them to Madagascar, which frankly I can't at the moment. A real semi-aquatic stage in human development? I'll have to think about that.

For now, let's try again, and think a little bigger. What if the Rift Valley became a real split in Africa, with the two fragments of the continent moving apart? One fragment has Australopithecines only, while the other, larger fragment has Australopithecines along with the ancestors of modern men. That sounds like an alternate history that deserves exploration, but it won't lead to modern Europeans discovering Australopithecines. It's too far back. It would almost certainly change all of humankind's history in a lot of ways that I can't really even guess at without a lot more research. 

Fragmenting Africa does sound like it might have potential though. I seem to recall that what is now Ethiopia was an island for a while during the early stages of human development. If that's true that island could be a refuge for Australopithecines, at least until early humans developed ship-building. Again, though, it changes too much too early. Oh well, it might be a way of ending up with two distinct species of human beings on earth at the same time, though. I suppose we could get that result by opening up the natural equivalent of the Suez Canal any time after the first humans made it to Asia, then holding it open for the rest of history. 

We could also have Australopithecines making it to one or more of the Mediterranean islands early on, say Cyprus or Crete. Maybe the ancestors of the Minoans could keep them as slaves. That pretty much exhausts my ideas on African lost cities and lost valleys. It's time to move on to South America, where we can find: 

The Lost City of the Conquistadors: Actually, I can think of several ways of getting here. Any one of a number of Spanish expeditions could find a relatively pleasant valley during their travels, and simply decide that they were in no condition to face the jungle tribes with their poison arrows on the way back. The first Spaniards to encounter the Chibchas of Columbia could have done that after their conquest, I suppose. A number of the other expeditions into the fringes of the Inca empire or the fringes of the Amazon could have done that too. I can't actually think of any cases where conquistadors actually settled down without reestablishing contact with the other colonies, though I suppose that if they had we might not know about it. They would have probably been absorbed into the surrounding tribes or destroyed by them within a few generations. This actually triggered an idea that I wrote up into a full scenario. Unfortunately that also ended the brainstorming sessions before I got to all of the continents. Maybe I'll try this again for next issue.