Also 6 casshe. [a. F. cache, f. cacher to hide.]
1. A hiding place, esp. of goods, treasure, etc.
1595. Drake, Voy., 12. The inhabitants havinge intelligence of our cominge, had … hid theyr treasure in casshes.
1860. C. Innes, Scotl. in Mid. Ages, x. 311. The little cache on the Orkney sea-shore, produced in all about sixteen pounds weight of silver.
1866. W. R. King, Sportsm. & Nat. in Canada, iii. 57. Crouched in his cache of green boughs.
b. esp. A hole or mound made by American pioneers and Arctic explorers to hide stores of provisions, ammunition, etc.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, I. 267. Captain Bonneville … prevailed upon them to proceed … to the caches.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xii. 138. The power of the bear in breaking up a provision cache is extraordinary.
1878. Markham, Gt. Frozen Sea, v. 62. Every cairn and cache was thoroughly examined.
2. The store of provisions so hidden.
1836. Back, Jrnl. Arctic Voy., 129 (Bartlett). I took advantage of a detached heap of stones, in the shape of an island, to make a cache of a bag of pemmican.
1842. Frémont, Report Exp. Rocky Mts. (1845), 22. As this was to be a point in our homeward journey, I made a cache (a term used in all this country for what is hidden in the ground) of a barrel of pork.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, xiv. (1869), 484. The Esquimaux … they all of them make ‘caches’ of meat under stone cairns.
