The Last American | Page 3

look of triumph, he exclaimed:
"It is ours!"
"What is ours?" I asked.
"The knowledge we sought;" and he pointed to the inscription,
NEW YORK STOCK EXC....
He was tremulous with joy. "Thou hast heard of Nhu-Yok, O my Prince?"
I answered that I had read of it at school.
"Thou art in it now!" he said. "We are standing on the Western Continent. Little wonder we thought our voyage long!"
"And what was Nhu-Yok?" I asked. "I read of it at college, but remember little. Was it not the capital of the ancient Mehrikans?"
"Not the capital," he answered, "but their largest city. Its population was four millions."
"Four millions!" I exclaimed. "Verily, O Fountain of Wisdom, that is many for one city!"
"Such is history, my Prince! Moreover, as thou knowest, it would take us many days to walk this town."
"True, it is endless."
He continued thus:
"Strange that a single word can tell so much! Those iron structures, the huge statue in the harbor, the temples with pointed towers, all are as writ in history."
Whereupon I repeated that I knew little of the Mehrikans save what I had learned at college, a perfunctory and fleeting knowledge, as they were a people who interested me but little.
"Let us seat ourselves in the shade," said Nofuhl, "and I will tell thee of them."
We sat.
"For eleven centuries the cities of this sleeping hemisphere have decayed in solitude. Their very existence has been forgotten. The people who built them have long since passed away, and their civilization is but a shadowy tradition. Historians are astounded that a nation of an hundred million beings should vanish from the earth like a mist, and leave so little behind. But to those familiar with their lives and character surprise is impossible. There was nothing to leave. The Mehrikans possessed neither literature, art, nor music of their own. Everything was borrowed. The very clothes they wore were copied with ludicrous precision from the models of other nations. They were a sharp, restless, quick-witted, greedy race, given body and soul to the gathering of riches. Their chiefest passion was to buy and sell. Even women, both of high and low degree, spent much of their time at bargains, crowding and jostling each other in vast marts of trade, for their attire was complicated, and demanded most of their time."
"How degrading!" I exclaimed.
"So it must have been," said Nofuhl; "but they were not without virtues. Their domestic life was happy. A man had but one wife, and treated her as his equal."
"That is curious! But as I remember, they were a people of elastic honor."
"They were so considered," said Nofuhl; "their commercial honor was a jest. They were sharper than the Turks. Prosperity was their god, with cunning and invention for his prophets. Their restless activity no Persian can comprehend. This vast country was alive with noisy industries, the nervous Mehrikans darting with inconceivable rapidity from one city to another by a system of locomotion we can only guess at. There existed roads with iron rods upon them, over which small houses on wheels were drawn with such velocity that a long day's journey was accomplished in an hour. Enormous ships without sails, driven by a mysterious force, bore hundreds of people at a time to the farthermost points of the earth."
"And are these things lost?" I asked.
"We know many of the forces," said Nofuhl, "but the knowledge, of applying them is gone. The very elements seem to have been their slaves. Cities were illuminated at night by artificial moons, whose radiance eclipsed the moon above. Strange devices were in use by which they conversed together when separated by a journey of many days. Some of these appliances exist to-day in Persian museums. The superstitions of our ancestors allowed their secrets to be lost during those dark centuries from which at last we are waking."
At this point we heard the voice of Bhoz-ja-khaz in the distance; they had found a spring and he was calling to us.
Such heat we had never felt, and it grew hotter each hour. Near the river where we ate it was more comfortable, but even there the perspiration stood upon us in great drops. Our faces shone like fishes. It was our wish to explore further, but the streets were like ovens, and we returned to the Zlotuhb.
As I sat upon the deck this afternoon recording the events of the morning in this journal Bhoz-ja-khaz and Ad-el-pate approached, asking permission to take the small boat and visit the great statue. Thereupon Nofuhl informed us that this statue in ancient times held aloft a torch illuminating the whole harbor, and he requested Ad-el-pate to try and discover how the light was accomplished.
They returned toward evening with this information: that the statue is not of solid bronze, but hollow; that they ascended by means of an iron