He will realize how they must have
inflamed the phantasy of those wandering mediaeval Arabs who could make no
distinction, in this respect, between the works of man and those of
nature, nor bring themselves to believe that such titanic structures were
reared by human hands or for any human purpose--were otherwise than an
illusion, or a natural incongruity. That amphitheatre of El-Djem, for
example, visible for leagues in the solitude around--what more apt to
become a true mountain of wondrous shape, the haunt of some Ifrit
imprisoned in its cup or soaring thence, a pillar of cloud, into the
zenith?
These are the ruins whose report was carried to Bagdhad by those early
caravan traders, and there woven into the flowery tapestries of the
"Arabian Nights"--nightmare cities, rising like an enchantment out of the
desert sand; bereft of the voices and footsteps of men, but teeming with
hoarded treasure and graven images of gods that gaze down, inscrutable and
sternly resplendent, upon the wanderer who, stumbling fearfully through a
labyrinth of silent halls, suddenly encounters, in demon-guarded chamber,
some ensorcelled maiden, frozen to stone.
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