My First Voyage to Southern SeasKingston, William Henry Giles
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My First Voyage to Southern Seas
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Oceania -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
direction, when suddenly I came upon an open space free from jungle,
with a beautiful expanse of water, blue and glittering in the sunshine,
spread out before me. Tall trees fringed the greater part of its banks;
but here and there columns, and domes, and carved arches, and huge
statues appeared among them, their strange and fantastic images
reflected in the mirror-like surface. Beyond them, towering up into the
clear sky, rose at different distances several of those prodigious
structures, the dagobas, which I have described. The whole scene, as I
beheld it in the light of that clear atmosphere, under the blaze of the
noonday sun, was most enchanting, while I sat down to shekel myself from
the heat beneath the shade of a mass of ruins, with wide-spreading
branches extending from their walls, which formed a complete roof over
my head. The site of the ruined city into which I had wandered must
thus, I discovered, be of many miles in extent, and gave me an idea of
the power and magnificence of the monarchs who once possessed the
territory. While England was scantily inhabited by tribes of painted
barbarians, here existed a people who had attained a high state of
civilisation, living in richly adorned palaces, having magnificent
temples, carving statues of gigantic proportions, erecting tombs and
monuments equal in height to mountains, and forming reservoirs of
lake-like extent. And now, how great the contrast! Those people were
then, and have ever since remained, sunk in the grossest superstition;
while the British, blessed with the light of gospel truth, have risen to
that height of civilisation which has given us the complete mastership
over the now fallen race which inhabit the country. I do not know that
I said this in exactly these terms, but such was the tenor of the
thoughts which passed through my mind.
While I was resting and trying to determine some definite plan to pursue
in order to find either Nowell or Mr Fordyce, I saw a figure emerge
from some ruins on my right, and approach the late. It was that of an
old man. His skin was of a dark brown, and he wore a long white heard,
with a loose robe cast over his shoulder and round his loins. His whole
appearance was in thorough keeping with the scene. He filled a gourd he
carried with water, and was returning to the place he came from, when
his eye fell on me. He started on seeing me, and then, putting down his
water-pitcher, advanced towards where I was sitting. I rose to receive
him, as I should have done had he been the poorest peasant; but from the
dignity of his air and the gravity of his countenance, he seemed to be
much above that rank. He salaamed, and so did I, imitating his action;
but it appeared that here our power of intercourse must cease, for I
soon discovered that he did not understand a word of my language more
than I did of his.
"Though I cannot speak to him, I will try, however, what effect signs
may have," I said to myself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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