Haggopian and Other Stories

Nor were the fabled lands of Mesopotamia the only places of interest to me. Fictional Shangri-La and Ephiroth ranked equally beside the reality of Mycenæ, Knossos, Palmyra and Thebes. I read excitedly of Atlantis and Chichén-Itzá; never bothering to separate fact from fancy, and dreamed equally longingly of the Palace of Minos in Crete and Unknown Kadath in the Colde Waste.

What I read of Sir Amery Wendy-Smith’s African expedition in search of dead G’harne confirmed my belief that certain myths and legends are not far removed from historical fact. If no less a person than that eminent antiquarian and archaeologist had equipped an expedition to search for a jungle city considered by most reputable authorities to be purely mythological… Why! His failure meant nothing compared with the fact that he had tried…

While others, before my time, had ridiculed the broken figure of the demented explorer who returned alone from the jungles of the Dark Continent I tended to emulate his deranged fancies—as his theories have been considered—re-examining the evidence for Chyria and G’harne and delving ever deeper into the fragmentary antiquities of legendary cities and lands with such unlikely names as R’lyeh, Ephiroth, Mnar and Hyperborea.

As the years passed my body healed completely and I grew from a fascinated youth into a dedicated man. Not that I ever guessed what drove me to explore the ill-lit passages of history and fantasy. I only knew that there was something fascinating for me in the re-discovery of those ancient worlds of dream and legend.

Before I began those far-flung travels which were destined to occupy me on and off for four years I bought a house in Marske, at the very edge of the Yorkshire moors. This was the region in which I had spent my childhood and there had always been about the brooding moors a strong feeling of affinity which was hard for me to define. I felt closer to home there somehow—and infinitely closer to the beckoning past. It was with a genuine reluctance that I left my moors but the inexplicable lure of distant places and foreign names called me away, across the seas.

First I visited these lands that were within easy reach, ignoring the places of dreams and fancies but promising myself that later—later!!

Egypt, with all its mystery! Djoser’s step-pyramid at Saggara, Imhotep’s, Masterpiece; the ancient mastabas, tombs of centuries-dead kings; the inscrutably smiling sphinx; the Sneferu pyramid at Meidum and those of Chephren and Cheops at Giza; the mummies, the brooding Gods….

Yet in spite of all its wonder Egypt could not hold me for long. The sand and heat were damaging to my skin which tanned quickly and roughened almost overnight.

Crete, the Nymph of the beautiful Mediterranean…Theseus and the Minotaur; the Palace of Minos at Knossos…. All wonderful—but that which I sought was not there.

Salamis and Cyprus, with all their ruins of ancient civilizations, each held me but a month or so. Yet it was in Cyprus that I learned of yet another personal peculiarity—my queer abilities in water…

I became friendly with a party of divers at Famagusta. Daily they were diving for amphorae and other relics of the past offshore from the ruins at Salonica on the south-east coast. At first the fact that I could remain beneath the water three times as long as the best of them, and swim further without the aid of fins or snorkel, was only a source of amazement to my friends; but after a few days I noticed that they were having less and less to do with me. They did not care for the hairlessness of my body or the webbing, which seemed to have lengthened, between my toes and fingers. They did not like the bump low at the rear of my bathing-costume or the way I could converse with them in their own tongue when I had never studied Greek in my life.

It was time to move on. My travels took me all over the world and I became an authority on those dead civilisations which were my one joy in life. Then, in Phetri, I heard of the Nameless City.

Remote in the desert of Araby lies the Nameless City, crumbling and inarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by the sands of uncounted ages. It was of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad poet dreamed on the night before he sang his inexplicable couplet:

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.”

My Arab guides thought I, too, was mad when I ignored their warnings and continued in search of that city of Devils. Their fleet-footed camels took them off in more than necessary haste for they had noticed my skin’s scaly strangeness and certain other unspoken things which made them uneasy in my presence. Also, they had been nonplussed, as I had been myself, at the strange fluency with which I used their tongue.