A Tour of Exploration
Rawson and I had been gone not half an hour when the aspect of the
country began suddenly to change. It was as though we had passed some
indistinguishable boundary, for the boulders were rapidly becoming
less numerous, and at length disappeared entirely, while at the same
time the odd, mossy vegetation became astonishingly rich and profuse.
Or, to be precise, it gave place to a different vegetation entirely,
an unearthly vegetation, almost too strange for belief. At the risk
of being accused of fabrication, I must describe those incredible
plants: the creepers with long leaves of lace-like brown, which twined
in dainty wreaths and veils about the olive-green boles of limbless
trees, the bushes, shaped like starfishes, and of the hue of dried
grass, with diaphanous flowers that a breath might have blown away; the
cinnamon-brown reeds that rose to double a man’s height, ending in a
profusion of cucumber-shaped fruits; the peculiar, abundant growth that
looked at a distance like a great earthen jar, but proved upon closer
examination to be the hollow container of a species of milk-white down
that grew in long and silken strands like untended hair.
So dense was the foliage that we would not have been able to force
our way through it, and would not have dared to make the attempt, had
it not been for a sharply cut path which wound in leisurely curves and
undulations close to the river’s brink. It was not like one of those
paths which nature occasionally plans, or which are due to the tracks
of wild beasts, for it had a regularity of design and an evenness of
width that proved it to be unmistakably the work of man. Yet what man
could have penetrated before us into these uncanny sunless depths? At
the mere thought that others might have preceded us we involuntarily
shuddered; we were half convinced that we were intruders into a tomb
closed ages ago. But despite this conviction, we kept a constant,
half-terrified outlook for sign of human presence.
It was not long before our vigilance was rewarded. Abruptly the path
before us widened, until it was of the size of a broad highway; and
above the dense masses of vegetation, we beheld in astonishment the
looming marble pillars of a Grecian colonnade. Toward this the road
led in long and graceful curves; and it was but a few minutes before
we found ourselves at the entrance of a covered walk or “stoa” that
brought back to me vivid memories of “the glory that was Greece.” On
both sides of us the palely-tinted Ionic columns rose to a majestic
height, daintily ornamented at the base with the acanthus design, and
curving in symmetrical proportions that brought to mind the perfection
of the Parthenon; while the marble floor on which we walked and the
marble ceiling above us were frescoed with figures that seemed drawn
bodily from the romance of the ancient world. They were not wholly
Greek. I knew these pictures of sportive mermaids and lightning-hurling
gods and dragon-slaying heroes and misty caves of twilight and the
throbbing lyre; but there was something suggestively Greek about them
all; and steeped as I was in the lore of ancient Hellas, I had the
singular feeling that the hand of time had been turned backward two
thousand years or more.
This feeling was accentuated when, having followed the covered walk
for a distance of several hundred yards, I observed that it led to a
magnificent, many-columned edifice which could pass for nothing if not
for a temple of the ancient gods. It was a structure of solid marble,
white marble artistically varied with veilings of black; its pillars
were massive as the trunks of the giant redwoods I had seen in the
California forests years before, and like those redwoods, produced an
effect of solemnity and awe; but all was so perfectly designed and
proportioned that, while the building occupied an area perhaps as large
as the average city block, it gave an effect less of magnitude than of
artistic completeness and beauty. No living thing was visible about
the precincts of this amazing temple, nor would I have expected any
living thing in what I had come subconsciously to regard as a realm of
the dead; but I was overawed at thought of this abandoned loveliness,
and paused at some distance to regard it reflectively, mentally asking
whether it was some still undiscovered survival from classical times or
whether I was but seeing a vision.
A suppressed exclamation from young Rawson brought me back to
reality--or, at least, to the unbelievable thing that passed for
reality. In the very center of the swift-rolling river, the banks
of which paralleled the colonnade at a distance of a dozen paces,
I observed a low-lying, gliding form, gracefully elevated at both
extremes, which at the first terrified glimpse I took to be some
fabulous monster, but which I soon recognized as some sort of boat or
canoe. Before I had had time for a half-composed glance at it, it had
gone speeding out of view; but in its fast-moving frame, I thought I
could distinguish half a dozen dusky bobbing shapes, and half a dozen
pairs of oars that reached out rhythmically, and noiselessly clove
the dark waters. Later, when I had had time for reflection, I was to
recognize this strange craft as akin to the shadowy apparition, the
unknown sea monster which had so terrified us in the submarine; but at
present I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that this weird place was
actually peopled, peopled by living men whom at any moment we might
meet face to face!
* * * * *
We had scarcely recovered from this surprise when an even greater
surprise flashed upon us. Out of the windows of the temple, which we
had believed long closed to human sound, a strange, thin music began
to float, serenely beautiful and of elfin remoteness and charm....
And while, entranced, we listened to those magical strains, there
came the fluttering of a butterfly gown, and from the temple doors
issued a shimmering, dancing form, followed by a score of other
dancing, shimmering forms--scarcely human, we believed, so ethereal
did they seem in the flashing and waving of arms, the swift rhythm
of feet, and the play and interplay of pale blue and gold and pink
and lavender and white from their flowing and multi-colored robes. A
singular iridescence seemed to overspread them, almost a halo such as
may envisage a goddess; and, gaping and enthralled, we gazed on them
as men might gaze on Venus were she to return to earth. Now down the
long colonnade they started, tripping toward us with birdlike gestures
and the airy unreality of perfect time and movement; and, fearful to
disturb the vision by our gross presence, we hid ourselves behind the
great stone columns, peeping out furtively as though they might vanish
bubble-like at our gaze. But, apparently absorbed in their dance, they
continued gracefully toward us, not glancing to right or to left, and
catching no hint of our intrusion--until, as the procession drew more
near and the charm of the music more compelling, I peered out too
incautiously from behind my marble bulwark, and found myself staring
full into the face of the most ravishingly beautiful woman I had
ever beheld. There was a quality about her face that seemed to mark
it as not of the earth, the Madonnas of old paintings have something
of that look; and the most perfect womanly bust that sculptor has
ever conceived; but there was also a vividness and an animation that
no mere painting or statue has ever shared, together with an air of
such innocence, such candor and kindliness of soul that, had I been a
believer in angels, I might have gone down straightway upon my knees.
But all this I beheld in the space between two heartbeats. Even as
the vision greeted me it vanished; the beautiful clear eyes were
distended with terror upon their first contact with mine; there came a
scream of fright, followed by a chorus of screams; then a scurrying of
fast-retreating feet, and the bright, fairy-like shapes had vanished;
and the empty river flowed silently past the empty colonnade and temple.