The Crystal City Under the Sea by Andre Laurie

Author:Andre Laurie [Laurie, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 978-1-61824-998-2
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV

THE STORY OF ATLANTIS.

WHAT I am about to relate to thee, stranger, and to thee, father, is a very ancient tradition. It reaches back among the years as far as two or three thousand lustra. I give it to thee as I have received it from Charicles’s venerable lips, who himself learnt it from those of his noble father, Antigoras, In his turn he received it from his father, and so on, back through the night of ages. Often, since the time when my childish head hardly reached his knee, he guided my finger, while I spelt on the papyrus the ancient traditions of our ancestors.

“At first, our fathers lived on earth, even as yours; and the bottom of the sea, unknown to human eyes, was inhabited only by the monsters of the deep, Tritons and sea-nymphs. Our country was then a vast continent extending beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in the direction of newly discovered territory, named as thou hast told us, America. It was one of those colonies of which thou hast spoken, young man. But how flourishing! To what a degree of power you must have attained, oh, my ancestors, in the arts of peace and war! Thou speakest of Phidias, of Scopas, of Praxiteles. I do not know what they did. But, before seeing the chefs-d’oeuvre shaped by their chisels, I should hardly bring myself to confess that they could do better than our masters, whose memories we piously retain, whose masterpieces have been copied by our decorative painters.

“Imbued with the pure traditions of Egyptian art, —for the learned and skilful among our ancestors, who came from the ancient land of Isis, had taken care to form their taste and guide their hand,—they created fresh wonders every day. In their free

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