The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-01-30

and blasted In vain. Procession OF eie-
phants In imitation, wrought into lustrous
marble. Troops Of horses IN full run.
Shrines, chapels, cathedrals wrecked on the
| mountain side. Stairs of moonstone. Ex-
! auisite scrolls rolling up more mysteries
| than will ever be unrolled. Over sixteen
square miles the ruins of one city strewn.
| Thronerooms on which at different times sat
| 165 kings, reslgning In authority they in
herited. Walls that witnessed coronations,
assassinatlons, subiugations, triumphs. Al
| tars at which millions bowed ages before the
orchestras celestial woke the sheperds with
! midnight overture.
When lieutenant Skinner In 1882 discov-
cred the site OF some Of these cities, he found
congregated in them undisturbed assem-
| bIages of leopards, porcupines, flamingoes
and pelicans reptiles summing themselves
on the affairs, prima donnas rendering
ornitholoeical chant from deserted music
| halls. One king restored much ofthe grand
| eur, rebuilt 1900 residences, but ruin soon
resumed It's scepter. But all is down-the
spires down, the pillars down, the tablets
down, the glory OF splendid arches down.
What killed those cities? Who slew the New
York and London Of the year 500 B. c.? Was
Il unhealthed with host of plaguesP Was
II foreign armies laying seige? Was 1t whole
generations weakened by their own vices?
i Mystery sits amid the monoliths and brick
dust, finger on lip In eternal silence, while
the centuries guess and guess in vain. We
simply know that genius planned those
cities, and immense populations Inhabited
Them. An eminent writer estimates that
pile of bricks in one ruin OF Ceylon would be
enough to build wall ten feet high froS
Edinburgh to London. Sixteen hundre6>
pillars with carved capitals are standing
sentinel for ten miles.
You can Judge somewhat of the size OF the
cities by the reservoirs tnat were required
to slack their thirst, Judging the size OF the
city from the size OF the cup out OF Wnicn II
drank. Cities crowded with Inhabitants
not like American or English cities, but
packed together as only barbaric tribes can
pack them. But their knell was sounded,
their light went out. Giant trees are the
only royal family now occupying those
palaces. The growl Of wild beasts where
once the guffaw Of wassail assembled. Anuraj-
ahpura and Pollonarna Will never be re-
builded. Let all the living cities OF the
earth take warning. Cities are human, hay
ing time to be born and time to die. No
more certainly have they a cradle than
crave. A last judgment is appointed for In
diyiduals, but cities have their last iudg-
ment in this world. They bless, they curse,
thew worship, they blaspheme. they suffer,
they are rewarded, they are overthroWn.
Preposterous says some one, to think
that any OF our American or European cities
which have stood 80 long can ever come
through vice 10 extinction. But New York
and London have not stood as long as those
Ceylonese cities stood. Where is the throne
outside OF Ceylon on which 1G5 successive
kings reigned for lifetime. Cities and ma
tions that have lived far longer than our
present cities or nation have been sepul-
chered. Let all the great municipalities OF
this and other lands ponder. 1t is as true
now as when the psalmiet wrote 1t and as
true of cities and nations as OF individuals,
s'The Lord knoweth the way OF the rign-
teous, but the way OF the dngodly Shall
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