The Story of Mankind | Page 4

and their terrible
sisters. In the centre the big bell, which made me turn stiff with fright
when I heard it in the middle of the night telling a story of fire or flood.
In solitary grandeur it seemed to reflect upon those six hundred years
during which it had shared the joys and the sorrows of the good people
of Rotterdam. Around it, neatly arranged like the blue jars in an
old-fashioned apothecary shop, hung the little fellows, who twice each
week played a merry tune for the benefit of the country-folk who had
come to market to buy and sell and hear what the big world had been
doing. But in a corner--all alone and shunned by the others--a big black
bell, silent and stern, the bell of death.
Then darkness once more and other ladders, steeper and even more

dangerous than those we had climbed before, and suddenly the fresh air
of the wide heavens. We had reached the highest gallery. Above us the
sky. Below us the city-- a little toy-town, where busy ants were hastily
crawling hither and thither, each one intent upon his or her particular
business, and beyond the jumble of stones, the wide greenness of the
open country.
It was my first glimpse of the big world.
Since then, whenever I have had the opportunity, I have gone to the top
of the tower and enjoyed myself. It was hard work, but it repaid in full
the mere physical exertion of climbing a few stairs.
Besides, I knew what my reward would be. I would see the land and the
sky, and I would listen to the stories of my kind friend the watchman,
who lived in a small shack, built in a sheltered corner of the gallery. He
looked after the clock and was a father to the bells, and he warned of
fires, but he enjoyed many free hours and then he smoked a pipe and
thought his own peaceful thoughts. He had gone to school almost fifty
years before and he had rarely read a book, but he had lived on the top
of his tower for so many years that he had absorbed the wisdom of that
wide world which surrounded him on all sides.
History he knew well, for it was a living thing with him. ``There,'' he
would say, pointing to a bend of the river, ``there, my boy, do you see
those trees? That is where the Prince of Orange cut the dikes to drown
the land and save Leyden.'' Or he would tell me the tale of the old
Meuse, until the broad river ceased to be a convenient harbour and
became a wonderful highroad, carrying the ships of De Ruyter and
Tromp upon that famous last voyage, when they gave their lives that
the sea might be free to all.
Then there were the little villages, clustering around the protecting
church which once, many years ago, had been the home of their Patron
Saints. In the distance we could see the leaning tower of Delft. Within
sight of its high arches, William the Silent had been murdered and there
Grotius had learned to construe his first Latin sentences. And still
further away, the long low body of the church of Gouda, the early home

of the man whose wit had proved mightier than the armies of many an
emperor, the charity-boy whom the world came to know as Erasmus.
Finally the silver line of the endless sea and as a contrast, immediately
below us, the patchwork of roofs and chimneys and houses and gardens
and hospitals and schools and railways, which we called our home. But
the tower showed us the old home in a new light. The confused
commotion of the streets and the market-place, of the factories and the
workshop, became the well-ordered expression of human energy and
purpose. Best of all, the wide view of the glorious past, which
surrounded us on all sides, gave us new courage to face the problems of
the future when we had gone back to our daily tasks.
History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time has built
amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the
top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is
no elevator, but young feet are strong and it can be done.
Here I give you the key that will open the door.
When you return, you too will understand the reason for my enthusiasm.
HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON.

CONTENTS
1. THE SETTING OF THE STAGE 2. OUR EARLIEST
ANCESTORS 3. PREHISTORIC MAX BEGINS TO MAKE THINGS
FOR HIMSELF 4. THE EGYPTIANS INVENT THE ART OF
WRITING AND THE RECORD OF HISTORY BEGINS 5. THE
BEGINNING