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- Author: William Richard Bradshaw
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We alighted, and I had the sailors drawn up in an imposing column on the platform, every man grasping his sword. Even the remotest walls of the garden were lined with wayleals, and military music added to the splendor of the scene.
Presently a stately figure approached us. It was his majesty accompanied by her majesty, Queen Toplissy. Koshnili whispered that it was a special honor that the king and queen should greet us even before we entered the palace. The king was tall and erect in bearing and his complexion was the color of old gold. His hair, as well as his closely-trimmed beard and mustache, were of a serpent-green tint. He wore a dome-shaped crown of gold, surmounted by a blazing ruby. His dress was a cloth of gold, light as gossamer, that swathed his form after the manner of our Eastern potentates. His boots of gold-lacquered leather were covered with emeralds and curiously turned up at the toes. Queen Toplissy was a handsome lady, rather heavy in physique, of an orange-yellow complexion, with bright copper-bronze hair, and her unclad arms wore a profusion of bracelets and armlets of various metals. Her crown was also of gold surmounted by a blazing sapphire. Her robes were of white silk embroidered with broad bands of orange and arranged in innumerable folds. Her boots were incrusted with sapphires. All this I saw at a momentary glance as Koshnili led me forward to his majesty. I was announced as "His Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the Polar King, the discoverer of the Polar Gulf, and the first inhabitant of the outer world who had ever reached Bilbimtesirol and Atvatabar."[79]
The king embraced me and I kissed the hand of her majesty. The officers and sailors received their due share of royal attention. We were the objects of unbounded curiosity on the part of the royal retinue.
Amid a salute of guns and music we passed through the archway that formed the boundary between the palace gardens and the court of the holy locomotive, and saw the palace of King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar before us.
It was a high, conical building, twenty stories in height. Each story was surrounded by a row of windows decorated with pillars. Colossal lions of gold stood on the entrance towers, their claws formed of straps of gold running down the walls and riveted to the lower tiers of stone, giving the impression that they held together the whole structure beneath. The style of architecture was an absolutely new order. It was neither Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, nor Gothic, but there was a flavor of all four styles in the weirdly-carved circular walls and roofs. The palace was surrounded by a spacious court, enclosed by cloistered walls. Flowers bloomed in immense square-shaped vases of stone supported on diminutive square pillars. A tank of crystal water, on each side of which broad wide steps led down into the cool wave, lay in the centre of the court. The tank was fed by a wide rivulet of rippling water that ran along a chiselled bed in the marble floor of the court.
The entire scene was a picture of glorious and blessed repose. The sculptor had covered the base and frieze of the walls with a profusion of ornament in high relief. Imagination and art had produced scenes that created a profound impression. A dramatic calmness held lion and elephant, serpent and eagle, wayleal and bockhockid, youth and maiden, in glorious embrace.
The banquet given by the king in our honor in the topmost story of the palace was both delicious and satisfying. All the fertility of Atvatabar ministered to our delight. Strange meats and fruits were music to the body, as art and music were meats and wine to the soul.
I sat beside his majesty at the feast, while Koshnili sat at my right hand. Admiral Jolar sat beside the queen, and on her majesty's right sat Captain Wallace. The professors and other officers, as well as a number of noblemen and state officers,[80] also sat at the royal table. At another table sat the sailors, accompanied by the officers of the king's household.
We had again an opportunity of tasting the squang of Atvatabar, which was of a finer brand than that served at the table of Governor Ladalmir. It added a new joy to life to taste such royal wine.
His majesty, seated on his throne at the feast, raised a glass of squang and said: "I drink in welcome to our illustrious guest, His Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the Polar King and discoverer of Atvatabar."
The company rising, shouted, "Welcome to His Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the Polar King," and drank of their glasses in my honor.
In acknowledgment of this great compliment I rose and proposed the healths of the king and queen. I said: "I drink to the healths of their royal majesties, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy of Atvatabar, to whom be lifelong peace and prosperity."
The company honored this sentiment by acclamation and drinking goblets of wine. This constituted the preliminaries of our interview.
"Now," said his majesty, "we are extremely anxious to learn all about the manners and customs of the people of the outer world. Tell us of these people, their laws, religions, and modes of government."
In obedience to the king's request I spoke of America and its nations founded on the idea of self-sovereignty, and of Europe with its sovereigns and subjects. I spoke of Egypt and India as types of a colossal past, of the United States and Great Britain as types of a colossal present, and of Africa the continent of the colossal future. I informed the king that the genius of Asia, of the Eastern world, ran to poetry and art without science, while that of the Western world developed science and invention without poetry and art.
"Ah!" cried the king, who was intensely interested. "Atvatabar has both science and art, invention and poetry. Our wise rulers have been ever mindful of the equal charms of science and sentiment in educating our people."
I assured his majesty that we were no less anxious to learn all about the institutions of Atvatabar than he was regarding the external sphere.
[81]
THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE HAND OF HER MAJESTY.
[83]
"Atvatabar," said the king, "is a monarchy formed on the will of the people. While the throne is inalienably secured to the king for life, the government is vested in a legislative chamber, called Borodemy. This legislative assembly is also our house of nobles, consisting of one thousand members divided into three classes. To be once elected to the Borodemy entitles the representative to receive the title of Boiroon for life only; at the expiration of five years, the term of each assembly, a member, if again elected, receives the title of Jangoon; if again elected the highest title is Goiloor. No one can be elected more than three times, and Goiloor is a title which but few attain, owing to the limited number of legislators who are three times elected to the Borodemy. The president of the assembly is always a Goiloor, as only a member of the highest caste is nominated for the presidency. He is also chief minister of state. His council, which is the government, includes the chief officer of each branch of government, as well as a royal representative. Thus Atvatabar is an absolute democracy, ornamented and ruled by those men whom a generous nation loves to honor for distinguished merit employed in the public service."
CHAPTER XVI. THE KING UNFOLDS THE GRANDEUR OF ATVATABAR."Your majesty," I said, "informs us that Atvatabar possesses science and art, invention and poetry. These matters interest us quite as much as your civil and military constitution. We will feel grateful if your majesty will inform us more particularly regarding the condition of those great forces for the development of the soul."
"You are right," said the king; "the government and the protection of society, although matters of the utmost importance, are always much inferior to the glory they defend. Mere police duties can never rank with the sovereignty of mind over matter."
"In other words," said I, "the barricade is ever inferior to the palace, and the treasure house to the heaps of gold within[84] it. But, your majesty, in what way does mind triumph over matter in your realm?"
"Well," said the king, "we worship the human soul under a thousand forms, arranged in three great circles of deities. The first circle contains the gods of invention, that is, the practical forms by which ideas rule the physical world, and also the composite forms of the inventors themselves. The second circle contains the gods of art, and the third circle the spiritual gods of sorcery, magic and love. What gods do you people of the outer world worship?"
"In my own country," I replied, "a great many people worship one God, the Creator of the universe. Many of these only nominally worship God, but in reality worship gold, while a still greater number worship gold without pretence of worshipping anything else."
"Then," said the king, "gold is your god. Our god is the aggregated universal human soul worshipped under its various manifestations, both real and ideal. This universal human soul forms the one supreme god Harikar, whom we worship in the person of a living woman, the Supreme Goddess Lyone. The great generic symbol of our faith is the golden throne of the gods in the Bormidophia, whereon sits Lyone, the supreme goddess, the representative of Harikar."
"Harikar is then your supreme deity?" I remarked.
"Greatest, for he embraces all other gods," said the king. "But the greatest individual god is the Supreme Goddess, the symbol of the Holy Soul."
I felt a strange desire to learn everything about so singular a divinity as Lyone. It was a weird, awful, yet terribly entrancing thought, that amid a thousand gods of dead and silent gold one only should be alive, and that one a beautiful woman. Was it possible that a live goddess could exist, and be both young and handsome? I was anxious to ask a thousand questions concerning this mysterious being, but it seemed a sacrilege to ask them. Was it possible for her to continue worthy of worship, a human being, intoxicated, as she must be, by the ceaseless adoration of millions? In other words, can a woman be a veritable goddess and live? These ideas rushed through my soul like quicksilver. My brain reeled with this discovery of the secret of Atvatabar! What to me were its never-setting sun, its want of gravity, its flying wayleals and[85] bockhockids, its sculptured cities, its sacred locomotive, its miracles of mechanism and art, compared to a real live goddess with warm blood and a beating heart! No wonder the discovery thrilled me! I felt like embracing his majesty for the information, so simply given, that filled me with delight!
My companions were also greatly excited at the story of the king, and it was with difficulty I could appear interested in the further information he so graciously imparted to us. What were mines of gold to this? But I strove outwardly to appear calm. I felt I must listen further to the story of Atvatabar.
"Our other deities," continued the king, "are the ideal inventors and their inventions. These give man empire over nature. All those who have given man power of flight, who multiply his power to run, those who multiply the power of the eye to see, the hand to labor or to smite, the voice or pen to transmit ideas to great distances and to great multitudes, stand in the pantheon in ideal grandeur. There are the lords of labor, the deities of space and time. They are those gods that breathe the breath of life into unborn ideas, and lo! from brain and hand spring the creatures of their will."
The officers and sailors were listening to the discourse of the king with rapt attention. We were anxious to learn as much as possible about this strange religion of Atvatabar.
"We also worship art and ideal artists," continued the king, "the soul-developers, who work for noble and humane ideas expressed in their most beautiful garb; the builders of earthly palaces for the soul in literature, music, manners, painting, dancing, sculpture, decoration, tapestry and architecture which are represented by ideal statues composed from groups of living artists. These in their ideal or collective perfection are the gods who counteract the evils
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