When we had been walking for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves exceedingly in the delightful cool which at this time of the day always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kôr, and that in some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze—for all wind was kept off by the rocky mountain wall—we began to distinguish clearly the buildings which, as Billali had informed us, were the ruins of the great city.
Even from that distance we could see how wonderful those ruins were, a fact which became more evident at every step. The town was not very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other cities of remote antiquity; perhaps its outer ditch contained some twelve square miles of ground or a little more. Nor had the walls, so far as we could judge when we reached them, been very high, probably not more than forty feet, which was about their present height where, through the sinking of the ground, or some such cause, they had not fallen into ruin. The reason of this, no doubt, was that the people of Kôr, being protected from outside attack by far more tremendous ramparts than any that the hand of man could rear, only required walls for show and to guard against civil discord. But, on the other hand, they were as broad as they were high, built entirely of dressed stone, hewn, probably, from the vast caves, and surrounded by a great moat some sixty feet in width, many reaches of which were still filled with water. About ten minutes before the sun sank finally we reached this moat, and passed down and through it, clambering across what evidently were the piled-up fragments of a great bridge in order to do so, and then with some little difficulty over the slope of the wall to its summit. I wish that it lay within the power of my pen to give an idea of the grandeur of the sight which met our view. There, all bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun, were miles upon miles of ruins—columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course the roofs of these buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the extreme massiveness of the masonry, and to the hardness and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great columns still remained standing.*
Straight before us stretched away what evidently had been the main thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide and regular—wider than the Thames Embankment. Being, as we afterwards discovered, paved, or rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were employed in the walls, even now it was but little overgrown with grass and shrubs, that could find no depth of soil to live in. What had been the parks and gardens, on the contrary, had become dense jungle. Indeed, it was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various roads by the burnt-up appearance of the scanty herbage that grew upon them. On either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of ruins, each block separated from its neighbour by a space of what had once, I suppose, been garden-ground, but was now thick and tangled bush. They were all built of the same coloured stone, and most of them had pillars, which was as much as we could see in the fading light as we passed swiftly up the main road, that, I believe I am right in saying, no human foot had pressed for thousands of years.*
Presently we came to an enormous pile, covering at least eight acres of ground, that we rightly took to be a temple, which was arranged in a series of courts, each one of them enclosing another of smaller size, on the principle of a Chinese nest of boxes, these courts being separated by rows of huge columns. While I think of it, I may as well describe the remarkable shape of these columns, which resembled none that I have ever seen or heard of, being fashioned to a narrow central waist, and swelling above and below it. At first we thought that this shape was meant roughly to symbolise or suggest the female form, after the common fashion of the ancient religious architects of many creeds. On the following day, however, as we climbed the slopes of the mountain, we discovered a large quantity of stately palms, whereof the trunks grew thus, and I have now no doubt but that the first designer of those columns drew his inspiration from the graceful bends of those very palms, or rather of their ancestors, that some eight or ten thousand years ago beautified the slopes of the mountain which formed the shores of the ancient volcanic lake.
At the façade of this huge temple, which, I should imagine, is almost as large as that of El-Karnac, at Thebes, some of the largest columns which I measured being between eighteen to twenty feet in diameter at the base, by about seventy feet in height, our little procession was halted, and Ayesha descended from her litter.
“There was a chamber here, Kallikrates,” she said to Leo, who had gone to help her to alight, “where one might sleep. Two thousand years ago thou and I and that Egyptian asp rested therein, but since then I have not set foot here, and perchance it has fallen.” Then, followed by the rest of us, she passed up a vast flight of broken steps into the outer court, and looked round into the gloom. Presently she seemed to recollect, and, walking a few paces along the wall to the left, she halted.
“It is here as of old,” Ayesha said, beckoning to the two mutes, who were loaded with provisions and our few packages, to advance. One of them came forward, and, producing a lamp, lit it from his brazier, for the Amahagger when on a journey always carried with them a little lighted brazier, from which to provide fire. The tinder of this brazier was made of broken fragments of mummy carefully damped, and, if the admixture of moisture is properly managed, this unholy compound will smoulder for many hours.* So soon as the lamp was lit we entered the place before which Ayesha had halted. It proved to be a cell hollowed in the thickness of the wall, and, from the fact of its containing a massive stone table, I should imagine that it had served as a living-room, perhaps for one of the door-keepers of the great temple.
Here we camped, and after cleaning the place out and making it as comfortable as circumstances and the darkness would permit, we ate some cold meat—at least Leo, Job, and I did, for Ayesha, as I think I have said elsewhere, never touched anything except cakes of flour, fruit and water. While we were still eating, the moon, which was at her full, rose above the mountain-wall, and began to flood the place with silver rays.
“Know ye why I have brought you here to-night, my Holly?” said Ayesha, leaning her head upon her hand and watching the great orb as she rose, a very queen of heaven, above the solemn pillars of the temple. “I brought you—nay, it is strange, but knowest thou, Kallikrates, that thou liest at this moment upon that same spot where thy dead body lay when I bore thee back to those caves of Kôr so many years ago? The scene springs to my mind again. I can see it, and it is horrible to my sight!” and she shuddered.
Here Leo jumped up hastily and changed his seat. However the reminiscence might affect Ayesha, clearly it had few charms for him.
“I brought you,” she went on presently, “that ye might look upon the most wonderful sight that ever the eye of man beheld—the full moon shining over ruined Kôr. When ye have done your eating—I would that I could teach thee to eat naught but fruit, Kallikrates, but that will come after thou hast washed in the fire; once I, too, ate flesh like a brute beast—when ye have done, I say, we will go out, and I will show you this great temple and the god whom men once worshipped there.”
Of course we rose at once, and started. And here again my pen fails me. To give a string of measurements and details of the various courts of the temple would only be wearisome, supposing that I had them; and yet I know not how I am to describe what we saw, magnificent as it was even in its ruin, almost beyond the power of realisation. Court upon dim court, row upon row of mighty pillars—some of them, especially at the gateways, sculptured from base to capital—space upon space of empty chambers that spoke more eloquently to the imagination than any crowded streets. And over all a dead silence of the dead, a sense of utter loneliness, and the brooding spirit of the Past! How beautiful it was, and yet how drear! We did not dare to speak aloud. Ayesha herself was awed in the presence of an antiquity compared to which even her length of days was but a little thing; we only whispered, and our whispers seemed to run from column to column, till they were lost in the quiet air. Bright fell the mo
onlight on pillar and court and shattered wall, hiding all their rents and imperfections in its silver garment, and clothing their hoar majesty with the peculiar glory of the night. It was a wonderful sight to see the full moon looking down on this ruined fane of Kôr. It was a wonderful thing to think for how many thousands of years the dead orb above and the dead city below had gazed thus upon each other, and in the utter solitude of space poured forth each to each the tale of their lost life and long-departed glory. The white light fell, and minute by minute the slow shadows crept across the grass-grown courts like the spirits of old priests haunting the habitations of their worship—the white light fell, and the long shadows grew, till the beauty and grandeur of the scene and the untamed majesty of its present death seemed to sink into our very souls, and to speak more loudly than the shouts of armies concerning the pomp and splendour that the grave had swallowed, and even memory had forgotten.
“Come,” said Ayesha, after we had gazed and gazed, I know not for how long, “and I will show you the stony flower of Loveliness and Wonder’s very crown, if yet it stands to mock time with its beauty and fill the heart of man with longing for that which is behind the veil,” and, without waiting for an answer, she led us through two more pillared courts into the inner shrine of the ancient fane.
And there, in the midst of the inmost court, that might have been some fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with what is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius of her children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre of the court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge ball of dark-hued stone, about twenty feet in diameter, and standing on the ball was a colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing and divine that when first I gazed upon it, illuminated and shadowed as it was by the soft light of the moon, my breath stood still, and for an instant my heart ceased its beating.
This statue was hewn from marble so pure and white that even now, after all those ages, it shone as the moonbeams danced upon it; and its height, I should say, was over twenty feet. It represented the winged figure of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form that the size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so human and yet more spiritual beauty. She stood bending forward and poising herself upon her half-spread wings as though to preserve her balance as she leant. Her arms were outstretched like those of some woman about to embrace one she dearly loved, while her whole attitude gave an impression of the tenderest beseeching. Her perfect and most gracious form was naked, save—and here is the extraordinary thing—the face, which was thinly veiled, so that we could only distinguish the outline of her features. A gauzy veil was thrown round and about the head, and of its two ends one fell down across her left breast, which swelled beneath it, and one, now broken, streamed out upon the air behind her.
23.1 The Temple of Truth
“Who is she?” I asked, so soon as I could take my eyes off the statue.
“Canst thou not guess, O Holly?” answered Ayesha. “Where, then, is thy imagination? It is Truth standing on the World, and calling to its children to unveil her face. See what is written upon the pedestal. Without doubt it is taken from the book of the Scriptures of these men of Kôr,” and she led the way to the foot of the statue, where an inscription of the usual Chinese-looking hieroglyphics was so deeply graven as to be still quite legible, at least to Ayesha. According to her translation it ran thus:—
“Is there no man that will draw my veil and look upon my face, for it is very fair? Unto him who draws my veil shall I be, and I will give him peace, and sweet children of knowledge and good works.”
And a Voice cried, “Though all those who seek after thee desire thee: Behold! Virgin art thou, and Virgin thou shalt go till Time be done. There is no man born of woman who may draw thy veil and live, nor shall be. By Death only can thy veil be drawn, O Truth!”
And Truth stretched out her arms and wept, because those who wooed her might not win her, nor look upon her face to face.
“Thou seest,” said Ayesha, when she had finished translating, “Truth was the goddess of these people of old Kôr, and to her they built their shrines, and her they sought; knowing that they should never find, still they sought.”
“And so,” I added sadly, “do men seek to this very hour, but they find not; and, as this Scripture saith, nor shall they; for in Death only is Truth found.”
Then, with one more look at this veiled and spiritualised loveliness—which was so perfect and so pure that almost we might fancy that the light of a living spirit shone through the marble prison to lead man on to high and ethereal thoughts—this poet’s dream of beauty frozen into stone, which I never shall forget while I live—we turned and retraced our steps through the vast moonlit courts. I did not see the statue again, which I regret the more, because about the great ball of stone representing the World whereon the figure stood lines were drawn that, had there been light enough, probably we should have discovered to be a map of the Universe as it was known to the people of Kôr. It is at any rate suggestive of some scientific knowledge that these long-dead worshippers of Truth had recognised the fact that the globe is round.
*In connection with the extraordinary state of preservation of these ruins after so great a lapse of time—at least six thousand years—it must be remembered that Kôr was not burnt or destroyed by an enemy or an earthquake, but deserted, because of the ravages of a terrible plague. Consequently the houses were left unharmed; also the climate of the plain is remarkably fine and dry, with very little rain or wind. As a result these unique relics have only to contend against the unaided action of time, that works but slowly upon such massive blocks of masonry.—L. H. H.
*Billali told me that the Amahagger believe that the site of the city is haunted, and could not be persuaded to enter it upon any consideration. Indeed, I could see that he himself did not at all like defying the custom, and was only consoled because he was under the direct protection of She. It struck Leo and myself as very curious that a people which has no objection to living amongst the dead, with whom their familiarity has perhaps bred contempt, and even to using their bodies as fuel, should be terrified at approaching the habitations that these very departed had occupied when alive. However, this is only a savage inconsistency.—L. H. H.
*After all we are not much in advance of the Amahagger in these matters. “Mummy,” i.e., pounded ancient Egyptian, is, I believe, a pigment much used by artists, and especially by those of them who direct their talents to the reproduction of the works of the old masters.—EDITOR.
XXIV
WALKING THE PLANK
Next day the mutes woke us before the dawn. By the time that we had rubbed the sleep out of our eyes, and refreshed ourselves by washing at a spring which still welled up into the remains of a marble basin in the centre of the north quadrangle of the vast outer court, we found She standing near the litter ready to start, while old Billali and the two bearer-mutes were busy collecting the baggage. As usual, Ayesha was veiled like the marble Truth, and it struck me then that she might have taken the idea of covering up her beauty from that statue. I noticed, however, that she seemed very depressed, and had none of that proud and buoyant bearing which would have betrayed her among a thousand women of the same stature, even if they had been veiled like herself. She looked up as we came—for her head was bowed—and greeted us. Leo asked her how she had slept.
“Ill, my Kallikrates,” she answered, “ill! This night strange and hideous dreams have come creeping through my brain, and I know not what they may portend. Almost do I feel as though some evil overshadowed me; and yet, how can evil touch me? I wonder,” she went on with a sudden outbreak of womanly tenderness, “I wonder, should aught happen to me, so that I slept awhile and left thee waking, if thou wouldst think gently of me? I wonder, my Kallikrates, if thou wouldst tarry till I came again, as for so many centuries I have tarried for thy coming?”
Then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: “Let u
s be setting forth, for we have far to go, and before another day is born in yonder blue we should stand in the place of Life.”
In five minutes we were once more on our way through the ruined city, which loomed on either side through the grey dawning in a fashion at once grand and oppressive. Just as the first ray of the rising sun shot like a golden arrow athwart this storied desolation we gained the further gateway of the outer wall. Here, having given one more glance at the hoar and pillared majesty through which we had journeyed, and—with the exception of Job, for whom ruins had no charms—breathed a sigh of regret that we lacked time to explore it, we passed through the encircling moat, and on to the plain beyond.
As the sun rose so did Ayesha’s spirits, till at length they had regained their normal level, and she laughingly attributed her sadness to the associations of the spot where she had slept.
“These barbarians swear that Kôr is haunted,” she said, “and of a truth I believe their saying, for never did I know so ill a night save once. I remember it now. It was on that very spot, when thou didst lie dead at my feet, Kallikrates. Never will I visit it again; it is a place of evil omen.”
After a very brief halt for breakfast we pressed on with such good will that by two o’clock in the day we were at the foot of the vast wall of rock forming the lip of the volcano, which at this point towered up precipitously above us for fifteen hundred or two thousand feet. Here we halted, certainly not to my astonishment, for I did not see how it was possible that we should advance any farther.