In two thousand years' time will there be brambles growing on Ludgate
Hill, I wonder, and will a shepherd graze his sheep in Piccadilly
Circus? It happened to Thebes and Carthage....
If the tamarisks should come back to town I desire to be reincarnated
at that time in order that I may join in archæological speculation on
the fragment of an extinct animal ("probably a lion") dug up on the
site of Trafalgar square! It would also be jolly to reconstruct the
plan of Bush House on the strength of three window-sills, a lift
bell, and a typewriter key. There are great days in store for those
who will shake up our dust and worry our ghosts, and even attempt to
discover our gods. I can see Macaulay's New Zealander having the
time of his life among the ruins of London; and surely one of his
most splendid adventures will take place at the base of Cleopatra's
Needle. Did you know that beneath this famous stone is buried a kind
of Victorian Tutankhamen's treasure, placed there to give some man of
the future an idea of us and our times? Did you realize that the
London municipal authorities could do anything so touching?
Under the obelisk sealed jars were placed in 1878 containing a man's
lounge suit, the complete dress and vanities of a woman of fashion,
illustrated papers, Bibles in many languages, children's toys, a
razor, cigars, photographs of the most beautiful women of Victorian
England, and a complete set of coinage from a farthing to five
pounds. So the most ancient monument in London stands guard over
this modernity, rather like an experienced old hen, waiting for Time
to hatch it.
Poor sad old stone....
* * *
I went down to look at it yesterday when the Thames, in full tide,
dancing in the sunlight, was giving the Embankment great slapping
kisses. Tugs were chugging upstream with their ugly duckling barges;
and the jet-black finger of Ancient Egypt pointed to the sky, so slim
and beautifully proportioned, so tall that when I looked up it seemed
to be falling against the wheeling clouds.
Two little boys were riding a sphinx. Men and women stopped, looked
up at the monument, saw the pale sunlight finding its way into those
funny little carvings, a few moved round to the rear of the platform
and gazed with open mouths, seeing an incomprehensible stone,
wondering about it perhaps, maybe feeling that there was a story
behind it somewhere, somehow.
A story? Heavens! What a story. Shall I tell you what I saw as I
stood there with the tramcars speeding past and the criss-cross
traffic busy on its way?
* * *
I saw a great tunnel of Time three thousand four hundred years long.
Imagine the time that separates us to-day from the Spanish Armada and
then _multiply it by ten_: that is almost three thousand and four
hundred years. London was unknown. We were probably beating our
wives in the Thames marshes and eating an occasional aunt. Greece
was unborn, and there was no Rome on the Seven Hills. But Egypt had
thrashed its way through the mumps and measles of civilization and
was already ancient. In this distant blaze of light moved epicures
and artists, soldiers and priests, and in the great palace of Thebes
sat the most powerful man in that time of the world, the Pharaoh
Thothmes III, Lord of the Two Lands, giver of life and death.
And Pharaoh decided to perpetuate his greatness in the eye of Time.
In other words, he probably remarked after dinner one night: "I want
obelisks for the temple at Heliopolis. That pylon looked rather
bare, I thought, the last time I was there. You might see to it,
will you?"
Whereupon chariots were harnessed and messengers sped south to the
red-hot granite quarries of Assuan.
* * *
Now see the architect drawing the shape of Cleopatra's Needle in the
virgin rock. See hundreds of naked backs bent over the stone,
pounding, pounding, pounding month after month in the savage heat
with no tools but hard balls of dolomite; and the whips crack over
the sweating bodies and flicker in the heat and hiss like the tongues
of serpents.
In a year the whim of Pharaoh is bashed from the quarry in blood and
tears. His titles are set upon it, and it stands, painted and
glorious, fronting the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis. On its tip
is a cap of electrum that catches the sun, so that travellers in the
desert looking towards the city of On see a pillar with a fire
blazing upon it.... Look!
A cloud of dust; and in the heart of it gilded chariots. The white
horses are pulled up on their haunches, the nodding ostrich plumes on
their head collars rise and fall, the fan bearers come forward, the
troops stand at ease, and above the kneeling priests is the Pharaoh,
that ancient superman, inspecting his monument from a burnished car.
"Quite good. The god is pleased."
* * *
Time passes. Moses, who was a priest in Heliopolis, sees the obelisk
every day. The frogs of the Plagues hop and chirrup on its plinth.
Over a hundred years pass, and Rameses the Great, who loved himself
dearly, carves his name on the column, usurping it. A thousand years
pass, and it is moved to Cleopatra's capital at Alexandria! Here it
survives four great empires. Thrones rock and fall, dynasties fade
like mists. The world changes. Two thousand years pass by, and a
new race of men come to power. They pick Cleopatra's Needle out of
the sand, enclose it in a huge steel cylinder, give it a deck, a
keel, a rudder, put a crew aboard and tug it across the sea towards
England. Prosperous winds favour the voyage for the first few weeks;
then, in the dreaded Bay of Biscay, Cleopatra's Needle pitches with
such violence that the tug's captain cuts her adrift with her crew
aboard her. How different from her last voyage three thousand years
previously, when the Egyptian slaves floated her on the sunlit Nile
for the delight of Pharaoh! As she rolls and tosses five sailors
from the tug volunteer to go out to the abandoned obelisk ship. They
are swept under and are drowned. Eventually the Cleopatra's crew are
saved and the tug watches her drift away over the stormy seas. Sixty
days pass and then news is received that Cleopatra's Needle was
tugged into Vigo by a ship whose owners received two thousand pounds
for their services. Eventually, tugged by an M.P.'s yacht the
Egyptian stone arrives in England.
Here, forty-seven years ago, they placed it beside a cold, grey
river, and some unknown hand penned the following epitaph to it in
the morning:
This monument as some supposes
Was looked on in old days by Moses;
It passed in time to Greeks and Turks,
And was stuck up here by the Board of Works.
* * *
Here it has remained beside the Thames, with the last great adventure
still in store. One night the wrath of Ra, the fury of Set, the god
of evil, descended like thunderbolts from a dark sky. Chips of the
granite pediment flew away. The plinth was bruised as a city is
bruised in war, and overhead in the shaft of a searchlight lay a
silver fish in the sky--a fish that hummed like a hornet and laid
most devilish eggs. What a strange night for ancient Egypt....
* * *
Sad, cold stone--the saddest monument in all London. We are killing
it. It was once red granite. Now it is coal black and its glory is
being eaten away year by year. Forty-seven years of London have done
it greater hurt than the three thousand years that went before. It
did not deserve this; for round it centres the splendour and glory of
the past and under its feet is a message for the future.
And it seems to me that its experienced black finger is pointing to
something which may make you laugh or cry.