Lost Cities 30
desert driving when they searched for ancient ruins.
The Great Farini was the stage name of the entertainer
William Leonard Hunt, who had realized he wanted to
become an acrobat when he sneaked into a circus. One
of his acrobatic acts included walking across the Niagara
Falls on a rope. Farini moved to London where he became
a celebrated acrobat. But he feared that if he continued, he
would sooner or later be seriously injured, so he decided
to change career. He remained within show business as
an inventor with 100 patents, including a now famous
apparatus known as the human cannonball.^89
One of the most successful shows Farini worked with
wasAfrican Pygmies, which included six live Bushman
from Africa. From their interpreter he learned of a legend
that said there’s a lost city in the Kalahari desert with
diamonds in abundance. Farini traveled to Africa where he
crossed the Kalahari Desert – a remote and inhospitable
place in the southern parts of the continent. When he
returned, he claimed he had discovered the ruins of an
advanced civilization: the Lost City of the Kalahari Desert.
In 1885, Farini described the ruins as:^73
A half-buried ruin – a huge wreck of stones on
a lone and desolate spot; a temple – or a tomb
for human bones left by men to decay and rot.
Rude sculptured blocks from the red sand project,
and shapeless uncouth stones appear, some
great man’s ashes designed to protect, buried
many a thousand year.