EXMOOR'S CAVE MAN

Evening Star, Issue 20686, 8 January 1931, Page 12

EXMOOR'S CAVE MAN

SOLDIER OF MANY WARS WITH KITCHENER IN SUDAN. Exmoor’s cavo man, who was’once a general in the army of Haiti, the black republic, was buried in the little church at St. Decuman, near Minehead, Somersetshire, on November 17. Ho was John Moles, aged eighty, who for many years lived in a cave near the roadside at Dunkery Beacon. Moles’s home, which was the size of a, large room, with smoke-blackened roof, was visited every year by hundreds of tourists. A short time ago Moles had to leave his cavo when the land was taken over by a new owner, but he refused to give up bis open-air life, and spent his last days in a rough shed on the moor at Timbcrscombe, where he died.

Moles joined tho army in 1870, fought in the 34th Foot Regiment in tho Afghan War, entered Kabul, and .was with the detachment which, lighting in Tibet, forced its way into Lhasa, the “Forbidden City.” He fought under Kitchener in the Sudan, and once, before the relief of Khartoum, bo alone accompanied Kitchener when the latter ventured among tho Dervishes disguised as a native date seller, to leai'n thejr plans. Moles left tho army, and became a sailor. He went to South America, where lie worked in plantations and became a trader. He mixed in politics, and took part in several revolutions. At Haiti he helped the revolutionaries in a successfud coup d’etat, and was made a general. A few years later another revolution overthrew his party, and General Moles became a refugee. Tiring of a roving life be returned to England, where bo settled down in tho west country as a mole trapper.