Prevod

Yes, in thousands of years they will come on the wings of steam, through the air and across the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will visit old Europe. They will come to its monuments and to the cities then sinking into decay, just as we in our day travel to the crumbling glories of southern Asia.

In thousands of years they will come! The Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine will still roll on; Mont Blanc will stand with its snowy summit, the northern lights will shine over the lands of the North, but generation upon generation will have turned to dust, whole ranks of the mighty of the moment forgotten, like those who already slumber in the burial mound where the prosperous flour merchant, on whose land it stands, is building himself a bench to sit and gaze across the level, waving cornfield.

"To Europe!" comes the cry from America's young generation—"to the land of our fathers, the lovely land of memories and imagination, Europe!" The airship arrives; it is crowded with travellers, for the journey is faster than by sea; the electromagnetic wire beneath the ocean has already telegraphed the size of the aerial caravan. Europe is already in sight: the shores of Ireland can be seen, but the passengers are still asleep; they do not wish to be woken until they are over England. There they set foot on European soil in Shakespeare's land, as the sons of the spirit call it; the land of politics, the land of machines, others call it.

They stay here a whole day; that is all the time this busy generation can spare for great England and Scotland. The journey continues through the Channel Tunnel to France, the land of Charlemagne and Napoleon. Molière is mentioned; the learned speak of a classical and a romantic school in the distant past, and cheers ring out for heroes, poets, and scientists unknown to our age, but yet to be born in Europe's crater: Paris.

The aerial steamer flies over the land from which Columbus set out, where Cortez was born, and where Calderon sang his dramas in flowing verse; lovely dark-eyed women still make their homes in the flowering valleys, and ancient songs tell of the Cid and the Alhambra.

Through the air, over the sea to Italy, to where old, eternal Rome once stood; it has been swept away, the Campagna is a wilderness; a solitary remnant of wall is shown as part of St Peter's, but its authenticity is doubted.

To Greece, to sleep one night in the sumptuous hotel high on the summit of Olympus; then one can say one has been there. The journey continues towards the Bosporus, to rest there for a few hours and see the place where Byzantium once stood; poor fishermen spread their nets where legend tells of the harem gardens in the days of the Turks.

They fly over the remains of mighty cities beside the great Danube, cities unknown to our age; but here and there—at cities rich in memories, cities yet to come, yet to be born of time—here and there the aerial caravan descends and rises again.

Down below lies Germany—once covered by the densest network of railways and canals—the lands where Luther spoke, Goethe sang, and Mozart in his day wielded the sceptre of music! Great names shone in science and art, names we do not know. One day's stay in Germany, and one day for the North, for the homelands of Ørsted and Linnaeus, and for Norway, the land of ancient heroes and young Norwegians. Iceland is visited on the homeward journey; Geysir no longer boils, Hekla's fires are out, but like the eternal stone tablet of saga, the rugged rocky island stands in the roaring sea!

"There is much to see in Europe!" says the young American; "and we have seen it in eight days, and it can be done, as the great traveller"—a name is mentioned that belongs to their own age—"has shown in his celebrated work: 'Europe Seen in Eight Days.'"