The Europe they had known was gone--gone were the great centers of
population, gone were the peoples they had known, swallowed up, all, in
the relentless march of Time!
Gone too, were the great nations of Europe, as Carl and Sana knew them.
All that remained of the once great British Empire was the little isle
of England--the rest of her domains had shaken off the yoke and were
independent countries.
In France a greater change had taken place. The one-time French race
had completely extinguished itself generations before. The land was now
overrun with a polyglot race of Russians and Germans, who were more
phlegmatic than ever.
Germany and the other countries of Europe, too, were changed to such an
extent that there was no comparison between the order now in existence
and the order that had passed.
In all Europe laws of equality of man had been established, so that
now all men were equally rich, or rather equally poor. Equally poor,
because, there was no longer any incentive or inducement to strive
to gain. The people had become drones to an extreme degree. There
was no reward for labor, so none labored. No man tried to outdo his
neighbor, for in the end, his neighbor had as much as he. Hence
progress had ceased long ago. There was no industry worthy of the name.
Civilization, as Carl and Sana knew it, was, too, a thing of the past.
To all appearances, the people existed only because they did not die.
Nothing mattered to them but food, and as eating was a necessary evil,
they procured their food, individually, with as little exertion as was
possible. Too lazy, in most instances, to even cook the fish and game
they caught, they ate it raw, and having filled their bellies, would
lie down beside their mates to sleep until they were hungry again.
Landing in North Africa, both Carl and Sana were astounded at the
changes that had taken place. The once barren wastes of the desert
country had been converted, as if by the wave of a magic wand, into
a great agricultural country. The terrific heat of the days and the
freezing cold of the nights had gone and in their place was a mild
climate, similar to that of the central United States. With this great
change had come prosperity; prosperity of such magnitude as to even
surpass that of Carl’s own country at the time he and Sana had taken
flight from the earth.
The flooding of the lower desert areas, while inundating tremendous
territory, had caused the surrounding lands to become fertile, rich
in nitrates and plant values. The people of the new, for such it was,
land, were the descendants of the one-time semi-savage races. Now they
numbered some two hundred millions and in truth had become a mighty
race, rich in power and wealth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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