EXMOOR'S CAVE MAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

EXMOOR'S CAVE MAN.

SOLDIER OF MANY WARS.

WITH KITCHENER IN SUDAN. Exmoor's cave man, who was once a general in the army of Haiti, the black republic, was buried in tho little church at St. Decuman, near Minehcad, Somersetshire, on November 17. He was John Moles, aged 80, who for many years lived in a cave near the roadside at Dunkery Beacon. Moles' home, which was the size of a large room, with smoke-blackened roof, was visited every year by hundreds of tourists. A short timo ago Moles had to leave his cave when the land was taken over by a new owner, but he refused to give up his open-air life, and spent his last days in a rough shed on the moor at Timberscombe, where he died. Moles joined the army in 1870, fought in tho 34th Foot Regiment in the Afghan War, entered Kabul, and was with the detachment which, fighting in Tibet, forced its way into Lhasa, the Forbidden City." He fought under Kitchener in the Sudan, and once, before the relief of Khartoum, he alone accompanied Kitchener when the. latter ventured among tlio- Dervishes disguised as a native date seller to learn their plans. Moles left the army, and became a sailor. He went to South America, where he 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 successful coup d'etat, and was mado a general. A few years later another revolution overthrew his party, and General Moles became a refugee. Tiring of a roving life, he returned to England, where he settled down in the west country as a mole trapper.