november (??). at the top of the temple of the sun.
i do not know the precise date, or the hour. our watches have long since stopped, and there has been neither the desire nor the need to wind them. in a land where the sun slips round the sky, and for half a year no night cometh, the proper measure of time is of little matter.
neither have i continued the record of these notes, for i thought each day to visit this spot, and so waited. in the light of the lily princess we have lingered and drowsed. from the peace of her pleasant palace we have not cared to stray. and she has smiled kindly upon us all, though from the first it has been evident that her joy lies in ferratoni, and that, in the princess, he too has found at last the ideal—the perfect spirit vibration that completes the chord of souls.
we have become glad of this and rejoice in his happiness. that is, we have rejoiced as much as 254anybody ever rejoices in this halcyon land. we have been peacefully and limpidly content, and their serene bliss has been our compensation.
yet there have been other rewards. we have mingled with the fair people of the court and found something of the bliss of their untroubled lives.
also, we have learned somewhat of their converse—that is, we have learned to imagine that we know what they are thinking and saying, while they have learned, or imagine they have learned, about us, too; and in this land to imagine that you have learned these things is much the same as if you had really done so, for in a place where life is reduced to a few simple principles, and there is neither the reason nor the wish to plan, or discuss, or quarrel about anything, what you say and think, or what they say and think in reply, cannot be wide of the mark in any case. as with time, exactness, or the lack of it, does not matter. indeed, nothing matters much in this balmy vale. lingering on a lilied bank in the sun—with—with any one of these gentle people, life becomes a soothing impression which minuteness and detail would only mar.
we have learned, too, though rather vaguely, something of the customs of the race, and the life of those who dwell beyond the palace gates. they are not a numerous people and their ways are primitive. nature provides their food, and their garments 255are few and simple. only the construction of their dwellings calls for any serious outlay of toil, and in this they unite as in a festival until the labor is complete. their harvests are conducted in the same manner, and in these things they are not widely different from our pioneer ancestors, who exchanged labors of the field, and merrily joined in their house-raisings.
like the people of the incas, the antarcticans have no money and no need of it. the lands are held in common, and the harvests yield more than enough for all. great storehouses hold the surplus, from which any one may be provided in time of need. famine, war, and the complications of law are unknown. indeed, the necessity of law here seems slight. for in a land where there can be no concealment, crime must languish and only such laws result as find natural and willing observance.
although what we regarded as life is very brief here, there is no dread of that which we know as death. death in fact appears to have no real empire in this land, for ferratoni assures us that the disembodied intelligence still vibrates to many of those clothed in the physical life, until it passes altogether out of range in its progress toward that great central force, which they believe to be the sun. to ferratoni this is no surprise. to the rest of us it is a matter of vague wonder, which we have accepted 256as we have accepted everything else of this mystic land and race.
there are no schools. education appears to be absorbed through their peculiar faculty of mental communication or “silent speech,” which develops in childhood, and is now almost universal. a few appear to be unable to master it, though their number is much less in proportion to the race than is the number of those who with us are lacking in the musical sense. in fact there seems to be a close analogy, or possibly a relation between mental speech and the musical vibration—those lacking the ear for tune and melody, they tell us, being deficient in the mental perception as well. the number of these is decreasing, however, with each generation, and in a land where the whole atmosphere breathes harmony the false notes must blend out in time, and the chord at last become universal and complete. there is a written language—a sort of symbolic ideograph—but with the perfection of their mental attainments, it has fallen gradually into disuse, and is now mainly employed in ornamental decoration, and for preserving the songs and records of the people.[3]
3. in no place does mr. chase give an example of the antarctic speech or writing. even the native word for their deity or their country is avoided, whether by intention or oversight cannot now be ascertained.
257of the latter we know but little. they are in the keeping of the princess, who, since our arrival, has been altogether too happy in the present to go delving back into the myths of her ancestors. we are told that the first princess came from the sun, and in this, too, the antarcticans somewhat resemble the people of the incas. in fact, they have so much in common with the ancient peruvians that we might suspect a common origin, were it not for their difference of color, and even this becomes less marked with each round of their ascending deity.
we are told further that when the first princess came to the earth she brought so much of the sunlight with her that the great luminary was dark for three days, and that all the light there was came from the heaven-sent being. it is said she found the people a benighted and unsceptred race, even then ready to destroy the life of a gentle youth who had risen up among them as a teacher and a prophet. overawed by her glory, they had dragged him before her for final judgment. but when the princess had looked upon the fair youth, and searched with her great radiance his innermost heart, she had laid her arms about his shoulders and declared him her spouse, beloved of heaven, and to be honored only next to herself. and when she had wedded him there before all the people, the sun had suddenly burst forth and laid its golden blessing upon them, 258and they had lived and reigned and enlightened the race for many years. and their land she had called the land of the sloping sun, and divided it into the lilied hills and the purple fields, and over the one the eldest daughter, and over the other the eldest son of each generation had ruled.
two thousand long nights have elapsed, they tell us, since the coming of the first sun princess, and though the race has never grown numerous or hardy, it has become gentle and content, and human life has not been destroyed for many generations.
they are deeply opposed to what we know as progress,[4] believing it conducive only to discontent and evils innumerable. they regard with sorrowful distrust our various mechanical contrivances. they are not surprised to learn that men are still 259condemned to death in our country, for the last man so condemned here was convicted of contriving a means to propel a craft without oars—in fact, a sail. it was a poor sail at that, and of little value save as an ornament. i said we might punish a man in our country, too, for inventing such a sail, though i thought we would hardly kill him. and then we learned that this man wasn’t killed either, for the princess of that time, being still very young and unmarried, had, in accordance with divine precedent, looked upon the inventor and loved him, and granted him her hand in marriage—for this, it appears, was their one method of royal pardon, and certainly a pleasant one for the inventor. the sail, she told them, had been sent from the sun, so that the winds of the fields might aid them, which was all very beautiful, though it seems that the sun might have sent a better sail.
4. in comparing mr. chase’s record of the customs and characteristics of the antarctic race with those of the ancient peruvians, we find in prescott (the conquest) a paragraph which reveals still further the striking similarity between the two races. prescott says:
“ambition, avarice, the love of change, the morbid spirit of discontent, those passions which most agitate the minds of men, found no place in the bosom of the peruvian. the very condition of his being seemed to be at war with change. he moved on in the same unbroken circle in which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his children were to follow. it was the object of the incas to infuse into their subjects a spirit of tranquillity, a perfect acquiescence in the established order of things.”
it was the same princess and her consort who began this great central temple in honor of their happiness, and who established as universal throughout the nation the “pardon of love”—that forever after no one who truly loved, and was so beloved in return, could perish by violence, and no one has so perished for more than five hundred of their long nights. the invention of the present princess and her brother—the dark-dispeller—has been explained to them as also a gift of the sun, to aid it in vanquishing 260the long night, though, as it has thus far never been made to work and is regarded by gale as hopeless, it would seem that in this case, as in the other, the sun might have sent a better one.
this temple, however, is flawless. it stands on an island in the midst of a lake, or rather a widening of the river, and is, as before noted, located exactly at the point where the sun, during its daily circuit, appears always equidistant, above the horizon.[5] it is therefore on the earth’s southern axis, and represents, to us, the south pole.
5. it is noticeable that mr. chase furnishes us with no clue as to the astronomical knowledge of the antarctic people. we are left to surmise that they believe the earth to be a flat circle about which the sun travels, instead of a revolving orb such as we know it to be. many other things which seem of importance are also overlooked. we would be glad to know more of the yellow metal once referred to, and something of their minerals and precious stones, which are nowhere mentioned.
each day we have come to the borders of the lake and viewed this wonderful edifice from afar. when i say “each day,” i mean about as often as that, if time were divided in the old way, and when i say “we” i refer to chauncey gale, mr. sturritt and myself, also to the princess and ferratoni when they chose to honor us, and to such others of the court as cared to follow.
we have meant to cross over to this island, but we could come any time, and when we did come 261we would have to ascend the long ladder of the sun—the steps leading to the top—so it was not well to hurry. to-day, however, is a sort of ceremonial—the end, or somewhere near it, of the first period of their long day, which they divide into four parts, as we do our lunar periods. the princess and ferratoni and a train of followers are coming, so we have set out ahead, and are resting here on the upper or topmost terrace, awaiting them.
there are four of these terraces, and they are very high. they represent the four divisions of the day period—the flowers, the fruitage, the harvest, and the farewell. they are connected by long stairs—two series, on opposite sides of the temple—one for the sun to climb, and one by which it is supposed to descend after the midsummer solstice. as i suspected, the people build their habitations to conform, not only to the earth’s surface, but also to the solar phases, and this temple is their great architectural culmination and model.
in the center of the upper terrace there is carved a huge dial, or calendar, somewhat resembling that used by the aztecs. it is divided into four equal parts, and two of these into smaller divisions by rays from a central sun, each ray signifying a solar circuit—one hundred and eighty-two and one-half such divisions representing their entire summer day. the other half of the dial is left unilluminated, 262so to speak, thus to signify the long night. in this dial the point of beginning indicates the direction opposite to that from which we came. here, also, ends the stairway by which the sun is supposed to climb, and from this direction, out of the unknown and uninhabited lands beyond, a fair river flows into the central lake. between two hills in the far distance its waters touch the sky, thus forming a narrow gateway on the horizon. and through this come the earliest rays of morning after the period of darkness. the first returning gleams are caught and borne to the waiting people by the ripple of the inward flowing stream. and for this they have named it the “river of living dawn.”
the antarctic calendar. rude sketch from mr. chase’s note-book.
directly across from this is the sun’s descending stairway, and there also, and flowing out of the lake, is the river by which we came. it, too, has a horizon gate, and through it, when its last half-circle is complete, linger the feeble rays of the parting sun. so they have named this the “river of coming dark,” and down its still current are sent those to whom night and cold no longer matter.
