Thousands of years from now
Well, thousands of years from now they will come through the
air, traversing the ocean on wings of steam! The young inhabitants of America
will visit ancient Europe. They will come to the monuments here and to the foundering
cities, just as we in our own age travel to the mouldering marvels of Southern
Asia. Thousands of years from now they will come!
The Thames, Danube and Rhine will still be flowing; Mont Blanc
standing with its snow-clad summit, the northern lights shimmering above the countries
of the North, but in the meantime generation upon generation will have become
dust, rows of the briefly mighty forgotten, like those who already slumber in
their burial barrow, where the wealthy flour merchants, on whose land it
stands, fashions a bench where he can sit and gaze over the flat, waving fields
of corn.
‘To Europe!’ is the cry of the young Americans – ‘to the
land of our forebears, the lovely land of memories and imagination, Europe!’
The airship arrives, crammed with passengers since the
crossing is swifter than by sea; the electromagnetic cables under the ocean
have already telegraphed just how large the aerial caravan is. Europe comes
into view, it is the coastline of Ireland that is visible, but the passengers
are still asleep; they do not wish to be woken before they are above England;
there they can set foot on Europe in Shakespeare’s land, as the cultured refer
to it – the land of politics, the land of machinery as others do.
They spend a whole day here, so much time this busy
generation is prepared to give great England and Scotland.
The journey then continues through the Channel Tunnel to
France, the land of Charlemagne and Napoleon. Molière is mentioned, the
educated among them talk of a classical and romantic school in the distant past
and the praise is sung of heroes, bards and scientists of which our age knows
nothing, but who are to be born on the crater of Europe: Paris.
The air-steamer flies over the country from which
Columbus set sail, where Cortez was born, and where Calderon sang dramas in surging
verse; lovely, dark-eyed women still dwell in the blossoming valleys, and in
the ancient songs Cid and Alhambra are mentioned.
Through the air, over the sea to Italy, there where
ancient, eternal Rome once lay; it has been obliterated, Campagna is a desert,
only a small section of the ruined wall of St. Peter’s Church still remains, though
its authenticity is called into question.
To Greece, to sleep for one night in the luxury hotel on
the top of Mount Olympus, so that one can say one has been there; then on to Bosporus,
to rest for a few hours and see the place where Byzantium once lay; poor
fishermen still spread out their nets where the legend tells of the harem
garden in at the time of Turkish rule.
Remains of cities down by the fast-flowing Danube,
cities our time did not know, are flown over, but here and there – the rich places
of memories, those that come, those to which time gives birth – here and there
the air caravan descends and then ascends once more.
Below lies Germany – once criss-crossed by the densest
network of railways and canals – the lands where Luther spoke, Goethe sang, and
where Mozart once held the sceptre of music! Great names gleamed in science and
art, names we do not know. A one-day stay for Germany and one more for the
North, for the fatherland of Ørsted and Linnaeus and Norway, the land of the
ancient heroes and young Norwegians. Iceland is included on the homeward trip,
the geysers no longer spout, Hekla is now extinct, but like the saga’s eternal slab
of stone the strong rocky island stands in the foaming sea!
‘There’s so much to see in Europe!’ the young American
says, ‘and we have seen it all in eight days, and it can be done, as the great
traveller (a contemporary name is mentioned) has shown us in his famous work: Doing Europe in Eight Days.
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