LANDING
AT last, I was sure, we were about to know a people that had not blurred
the features of primeval virtue. And yet I laughed at the thought. What
was there in human nature to insure material advance without
contamination of the spirit? How were the ages to whip the old Adam out
of us but by new vices? Never had the world known exception. But here
were lands fenced off from contagion for uncounted ages. Perchance the
strange conditions had evolved a simpler civilisation; perchance the
strange quarantine in human history had checked the influx of all common
spiritual disease.
And there was a strange ethereal beauty misted over the parts that we
could see. A thin veil, as of gossamer, withdrew and yet revealed the
features of the scenery; and our imaginations were stirred to know the
reality we could but dimly see. It excited us like a dream but
half-remembered. Our natures tingled with curiosity and eagerness; and
every nerve was braced to find our way beneath the veil.
We made for a beautiful landlocked harbour that seemed to promise
shelter of the fairest; but it was only a mirage and faded into a long
shelving beach of sand. We tried to anchor, but we could find no bottom.
And as there was perfect calm we rowed towards the shore with a hawser,
hoping to find some rock or tree on which to tie it. The sandy slope was
but an illusion, too, and when we came to solid features we found there
was nothing but a sheer wall of rock, rising to hundreds of feet above
us, that laughed at our toil. Chance after chance, point of vantage
after point of vantage led us on, eager, expectant, only to sicken us
with illusion. It seemed to be the land of phantasms.
At length, weary with chilled eagerness, we saw the coast slope
downwards to the mouth of a river. Our labours were about to be crowned
with success. We found an anchorage and rowed towards the shore. But no
landing-place offered; every piece of seeming solid shore turned out a
quicksand when we touched it with our feet; only the watchful care of
our comrades in the boat saved us from disaster. And the breakers on the
bar of the river churned to white warned us off. We risked the entrance
at last, and were capsized. I swam for a jutting rock that near the bank
stemmed the outrunning current. Exhausted with the long effort I reached
out and caught the weedy tangle that clung to its sides; I dragged
myself up its jagged, wounding slope, and fell into a hollow that held
me as I lay in swoon.
Annihilation thawed into consciousness of the blue sky in my eyes and of
the flinty rock on which I was stretched. I rose, torn and bleeding, and
looked out for my comrades. I could see only the keel of the boat
floating out to sea; no yacht, no sign of life. In my hunger,
exhaustion, and abandonment I could think of nothing but to make for
land and the nearest habitations. I ate some of the shell-fish on the
rock, stanched my wounds, and then threw myself into the inflowing tide.
I easily breasted the current that divided my solitary crag from the
bank, yet it bore me in its swiftness many miles inland before I could
reach a landing-point; for broad spaces of glistening mud, in which I
sank and floundered, divided me from the green fields beyond. The tide
swept me towards a grassy point; I seized an overhanging branch of a
tree and sprang upon the firm ground.
A sight of marvellous beauty held me rigid for a moment. Marble palaces,
margined with gleaming gardens, flecked the length of the river as far
as my eye could reach, and rose, nested in trees, terrace above terrace,
up the slopes on either side. Boats with brilliant coloured awnings
plied from bank to bank, like swarms of tropical butterflies, or lay
moored to flights of snow-pure steps that flanked the water at
intervals. Great temples and public buildings broke the outline with
their sky-pricking spires. For an instant I doubted my eyes and thought
illusion was playing them false, such a dream of beauty lay before them.
I dared not approach such noble purity so begrimed as I then was. I
sought the outskirts of the city, for I knew that every town, however
beautiful and rich, draggles off in some direction into meanness and
filth and penury. I marvelled at the extent of the squalor here. When I
reached the highest point of view I saw every gully and level teeming
with the evidence of indigent myriads. A reeking human quagmire
stretched for miles over the flood-soaked borders of this noble city,
like a rich robe of lace that has dragged its train through liquid
filth. Groves of trees failed to conceal the squalor and destitution of
these low-lying suburbs.
Yet there I felt must be my resting-place till I had found a footing in
the land. I had enough precious stones in my possession to serve me as
money for months, if not for years. Most of them I buried in a secret
place, which I marked well; and I traced a map of its position from the
chief features of the city, and from north and west by aid of a small
compass I had. With two or three rubies I made for the centre of the
city’s pauperism, and by means of gestures managed to change them in a
mean pawnshop for the coin of the country.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]