The Man who Missed the War Read Online Free Page B

been an actual fact.’
    ‘Oh, but it was. There’s not a doubt about that. Geology, botany, ethnology and lexicology, as well as the traditions and folklore of every race in Western Europe and North and Central America, provide abundant evidence to prove it. But it was not universal, as the author of Genesis no doubt believed, and Noah’s party was by no means the only one to escape. There are practically no Flood legends among the peoples of Asia, and none at all in the folklore of the Pacific. Everything points to the catastrophe having been caused by the subsidence of a great island continent in the North Central Atlantic. Plato has left us a most realistic description of the marvellous civilisation which flourished in Atlantis, as it was given to him by an Egyptian priest. Egypt, Chaldea, Mexico and Peru all derived their civilisations from Atlantis and were, perhaps, colonies of the Atlantean Empire before the Deluge. Or it may have been that little parties of cultured survivors landed and settled in these places soon after the disaster. In any case, from Plato’s description of the great circular harbour in the Atlantean capital, it is clear thatthey must have had ships of considerable size, and no doubt many of these were on distant voyages at the time of the crisis. Some must have escaped and, like Noah, landed in distant countries; but many of the ships were probably manned only by rough sailors who would have been absorbed into the local semi-barbaric populations, leaving no permanent civilising influence behind them—only a legend of the disaster which had overtaken their country and a garbled version of one or other of the two original religions. Hence the ensuing confusion.’
    ‘Well, you amaze me!’ Philip ran a hand through his unruly fair hair. ‘I’ve always thought the story of Atlantis was a complete myth.’
    The Canon stood up and, going over to a corner cabinet that held a small collection of jade and soapstone carvings, brought back from it a curious piece which he handed to Philip with the question: ‘What d’you make of that?’
    Philip turned the bluey-green stone carefully from side to side in his hands. It was about seven inches long, roughly the shape of a conch shell, with a row of holes bored in it increasing in size from the thin to the thick end. The whole was most elaborately carved to represent a man with a conical cap on a head much too big for his body, and a fish’s tail. After a moment Philip shook his head. ‘It’s a lovely thing, but I haven’t the faintest idea what it is—unless it’s some sort of musical instrument that you blow through.’
    ‘That’s right. It is a very early example of the Pipes of Pan, and the carving, as you see, is as exquisite as anything ever done by the Chinese, although it bears no resemblance to Chinese art of any period.’
    ‘No, the face looks like that of a Red Indian, doesn’t it? And the design reminds one of the bits of old Mexican stonework that one sees in museums—except that it’s much simpler and altogether more delicate.’
    ‘Yes. The art of the Incas and Aztecs was, in fact, a debased version of the art of the people who made that—and inherited from them. That is far older than any civilisation of which we have a record. It was given to me by an American friend of mine who is a professional geologist. He found it when he was examining some mountain caves in one of the Lesser Antilles, and hevouches for the fact that it cannot be less than ten thousand years old, owing to the deposits under which he found it. The only possible explanation of the finding of such a gem in such a place is an acceptance of the existence of Atlantis as an historical fact. If there had been any other civilisation ten thousand years ago that had advanced to a state of culture in which its art equalled, or perhaps even surpassed, the Chinese, there could hardly fail to be innumerable traces of it.’
    ‘How absolutely fantastic!’ Philip