--L.
H. H.
Straight before us stretched away what had evidently been the main
thoroughfare of the city, for it was very wide, wider than the Thames
Embankment, and regular, being, as we afterwards discovered, paved,
or rather built, throughout of blocks of dressed stone, such as were
employed in the walls, it was but little overgrown even now with grass
and shrubs that could get no depth of soil to live in. What had been the
parks and gardens, on the contrary, were now dense jungle. Indeed, it
was easy even from a distance to trace the course of the various roads
by the burnt-up appearance of the scanty grass that grew upon them. On
either side of this great thoroughfare were vast blocks of ruins, each
block, generally speaking, being separated from its neighbour by a space
of what had once, I suppose, been garden-ground, but was now dense and
tangled bush. They were all built of the same coloured stone, and most
of them had pillars, which was as much as we could make out in the
fading light as we passed swiftly up the main road, that I believe I am
right in saying no living foot had pressed for thousands of years.
Pages:
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481