Ancient cities
There is something to be said for ancient cities. There is a haunting sense of history about their walls and foundations, something about the crumbling stonework. It is as if the thoughts and dreams of a thousand generations of passing people have worked their way into the very mortar, and it is this, their humanity and not the mortar, that now holds the stones together.
It is these ancient cities, too, whose population numbers seem the most uncertain. Buildings on top of buildings, and a hundred nooks and crannies and catacombs provide secret places for the underworld to slip into and disappear for days on end. Montreal is old but hardly ancient, and already she has miles of tunnels honeycombing the earth beneath her; Rome, far more ancient, has her famous catacombs, but were these built on top of further, unknown tunnels? What lies buried beneath those ancient cities whose underground worlds are less well-known?
In the town of Hamelin I watched a tall, silent man with silver eyes wander the streets. He was silent, almost a ghost himself, and I observed him wander into an alley which I knew to be a dead end, but from which he never emerged. Doubtless he belonged to that mysterious underworld of this ancient town. On subsequent visits to London, Paris, Jerusalem, I watched for them: the mysterious, silent ones who seem to belong to the city but not so much to the people of the city.
Every city has its ghosts, and the ancient ones more than most.
It is these ancient cities, too, whose population numbers seem the most uncertain. Buildings on top of buildings, and a hundred nooks and crannies and catacombs provide secret places for the underworld to slip into and disappear for days on end. Montreal is old but hardly ancient, and already she has miles of tunnels honeycombing the earth beneath her; Rome, far more ancient, has her famous catacombs, but were these built on top of further, unknown tunnels? What lies buried beneath those ancient cities whose underground worlds are less well-known?
In the town of Hamelin I watched a tall, silent man with silver eyes wander the streets. He was silent, almost a ghost himself, and I observed him wander into an alley which I knew to be a dead end, but from which he never emerged. Doubtless he belonged to that mysterious underworld of this ancient town. On subsequent visits to London, Paris, Jerusalem, I watched for them: the mysterious, silent ones who seem to belong to the city but not so much to the people of the city.
Every city has its ghosts, and the ancient ones more than most.