THE CITY OF DELIGHT
Behold the huge city which stretches out before you.
Neither ancient Rome nor modern London, nor yet the capital of the
Celestial Empire, not even Babylon, far famed of old, not one of the
congeries of houses of the known world, is to be compared with this
city.
View it even from the top of this high hill, and you cannot take in half
of it. Formerly it was bounded by two great rivers, but now these also
are covered with houses, and have their course assigned to them out of
sight, beneath the town.
A fantastic, extravagant architecture, all glitter and luxuriance, the
creation of a wild fancy, forms a striking contrast to the simplicity of
the classic and the sublimity of the Gothic style.
The gates of the city consist of strange pyramidal structures formed of
gigantic layers of cubes, one above the other, the spaces between each
cube being wide enough to admit the passage of two heavily laden waggons
abreast. The lowermost layer consists of eleven cubes, the next layer of
ten, and so on, regularly diminishing by one up to the eleventh,
topmost, solitary cube towering high into the air, and surmounted by the
image of the unshapely Megatherium, the tutelary deity of the city. Each
of these dazzling cubic stones shows a bas relief representing a human
figure with a crown on its head, and a sceptre in its hand, whilst
wondrous hieroglyphics below record the six-and-sixty names of the
ancient rulers of the city.
The first thing which strikes the stranger as he enters the city is the
intoxicating, voluptuous perfume which seems to form part of the
atmosphere, the exhalation whereof, like a golden mist, extends all over
the place, enveloping the towers and roofs of the loftiest palaces in a
romantic chiarooscuro. 'Tis the odour of ambergris and musk, and other
perfumes, now unknown, which the owners of these palaces have mingled
with the mortar of their walls so that the whole town may be bathed in
an eternal sea of fragrance. Every street spreads abroad its own
peculiar, pleasant odour.
Viewed from afar, all these palaces seem like so many houses of cards.
One row of columns rises above another, and each row is encircled by
wondrous gossamer trellis-work, so that they look for all the world like
aerial, unsubstantial balconies. The lowest row of columns consists of
glittering, polished metal (mostly copper), the next rows of jasper or
alabaster, and the uppermost of transparent, prismatically fashioned
glass, the facets of which catch the morning and evening rays of the
tropical sun, and scatter fantastic rainbows on every side of them.
None of the houses have external windows, as with us, so that it is
impossible to peep inside them. The whole façade is covered with
wonderful statuary--on whose extraordinary groups the eye would
willingly linger, if fresh wonders did not every moment divert its
attention at every step.
The streets are spanned by arched bridges, which unite the roofs of the
opposite houses, so that the city can not only be traversed lengthways
by the streets, but crossways also by the roofs and bridges above--the
latter, in fact, being the night, as the former is the day route. No
sooner has the sinking of the star of day wrapped the streets in
darkness than the bridges become animated and populous. Laughing and
singing, the noisy groups crowd the bronze bridges and the gardened
house-tops. Every house is now open to all, and reveals its sweet
mysteries; every roof is bright with the glare of torches, and the
half-naked bands, flitting to and fro, revel tumultuously on high.
If any one were to stand in the street below at such times he would hear
nothing but an indescribable, terrifying hubbub, occasioned by the
mysterious orgies above his head.
In many places huge cupolas spring up amongst and above the palaces,
like gigantic eggs rising out of the ground. Wondrous, indeed, the
imagination which could devise such structures. The whole building seems
to be of a piece, yet it consists of millions of stones deftly joined
together with a single large lateral opening.
In the midst of the city rises a temple of colossal proportions, the
eight sides of which are covered with silver plates polished to a
blinding brightness. In this gigantic mirror one sees reflected the
wondrous image of the far-extending city, and the repercussion of the
sunbeams therefrom fills the remotest corners of the city with a
dazzling refulgence. On the summit of the temple is a huge idol of
massive silver. The head is round, like a man's, and its hands and feet
have each five digits; but the long, squirrel-like tail behind seems to
deny its human origin. Diamonds as large as eggs supply the place of
eyes. This is the giant Triton, the supremest idol of that ancient
continent, exalted above all the other monsters whom men adore--a
millennial monster whose living original sits within the walls of that
temple, and utters a roar when it is hungry, and then the whole
city--the whole land--trembles before its wrath. It asks but one meal a
year, but then it must have a man and a woman to bury in its maw. After
that it is dumb again for another year, and sits in the midst of its
temple on a golden throne with its five-fingered hand resting on its
knees, and its immovable eyes blankly staring before it, just like its
silver effigy on the roof up yonder.