Marble Hill press., 1895-01-31

which royal professions marched.
Arches under which kings were car
ried. City with reservoir twenty miles
in circumference Extemporized lakes
that did their cooling and refreshing
for twelve centuries. Ruins more sug
gestive than Melrose and Kenilworth.
Ceylonian Karn axis and Luxors. Ruins
retaining much of grandeur, though
wars bombarded them and time
put his chisel on every block,
and more than all, vegetation
put it's anchors, and prizes, and
wrenches in all the crevices. Dago-
bas, or palaces where relics of saints
Or deities are kept. Dagobas four
hundred feet high, and their fallen
material burying precious things for
the sight of which modern curiosity
has digged and blasted In vain. Pro-
cession of elephants in imitation,
wrought into lustrous marble. Troops
of hor, es in full run. Shrines, chap
els, cathedrals wrecked on the noun
tain side. Stairs of moon stone. Ex-
quisite scrolls rolling up more myster-
les than will ever be unrolled. Over
sixteen square miles, the ruins of one
city strewn. Throne rooms on which
at different times sat 165 kings, reign
ing in authority they inherited. Walls
that witnessed coronations, assassina-
tlons, subjugations, triumphs. Affairs
at which millions bowed ages before
the orchestras celestial woke the
shepherds with midnight overture.
When Lieut.. Skinner, in 1882, dis
Ecovered the site of some of these cities,
he found congregated in them undis-
turbed assemblages of leopards porcu-
pines, fiamingoes and pelicans; reptiles
summing themselves on the altars;
prima donnas rendering ornithological
chant from deserted music halls. One
king restored much of the grandeur;
rebuilt l,5OO 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?
| w llO SlC" llC ->CN lo1N anu lIOuoOA
of the year 500 B. c.? Was it un-
healthed with a host of plaques? Was
it foreign armies laying siege? Was it
whole generations weakened by their
own vices? Mystery sits amid the
monoliths and brick dust. Finger on
lip in eternal silence while the CEN
turies guess and guess in vain. We
simply know that genius planned
those cities. An eminent writer esti-
mates that pile Of bricks in one ruin
of Ceylon would be enough to
build wall ten feet high from Edin-
burgh to London; 1000 pillars with
carved capitals are standing sentinel
for ten miles. You can judge some
what of the size of the cities by the
reservoirs that were required to slake
their thirst; judging the size of the city
from the size Of the cup out of which
it drank. Cities crowded with inha BIZ
tants; not like American or English
cities, but packed together as only bar
barrie 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. Anur-
adhapura and Pollonara will never be
rebuilded. Let all the living cities of
the earth take warning. Cities are
human, having time to be born and
a time to die. No more certainly have
they cradle than grave. A last
Judgment is appointed for individuals,
but cities have their last Judgment in
this world. They bless, they curse,
they worship, they blaspheme, they
suffer, they are rewarded, they are
overthrow.
Preposterous! says some one, to
think that any of our American or
European cities which have stood so
long can ever come through vice to ex-
tinction. But New York and London
have not stood so long as those Cey-
lonese cities stood. Where is the
throne outside of Ceylon on which 165
successive kings reigned for life
time. Cities and nations that have
| lived far longer than our present cities.
or nation, have been sepulchred. Let
all the great municipalities of this and
other lands ponder 1t is as true now
as when the psalmist wrote it, and as
true of cities and nations as of individ-
uals: 1.-THE Lord knoweth the way of
the righteous; but the way of the un-
godly shall perish"
| IN Germany the works OF sir war
ter Scott are used as school text