This is the legend, then, and that for thousands of years it was regarded as a fable proves nothing.
People used to believe the legends of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths. They believed so for a thousand years, before archaeologists exposed the ruins. The historian Herodotus was called “the father of liars” for a thousand years, because he wrote of the wonders of the ancient civilizations of the Nile valley and of Chaldea. But now it is known he spoke the truth.
It is so with this legend of Atlantis, of which the great Greek, Plato, has left us the most detailed account. All these thousands of years since Plato wrote his account of Atlantis, 400 years before the Birth of Christ, he has been regarded as a poetizer. But in the light of recent researches, which really are just beginning, it appears as if what he wrote was not legend but history, and as if, indeed, his story is one of the most valuable documents which have come down to us from antiquity.
Some day you must hunt up and read for yourselves a book entitled “Atlantis or the Antediluvian World.” Written by Ignatius Donnelly, it was published by Harper & Brothers in 1882. In it are collected Plato’s story of Atlantis and a wealth of evidences which go to prove, in the author’s opinion, that Atlantis did actually exist, that it was the home of the white race, the Semitic race and, perhaps, the Turanian, and that it was destroyed by a convulsion of Nature.
Since Donnelly’s book, investigation has gone further. Savants uncovered near the southern edge of the Sahara Desert about the time of the outbreak of the Great War the ruins of two great cities of an unknown civilization, believed to have been seats of a migration from Atlantis. The war, however, halted their research, and up to a recent period the investigation had not been resumed. In one of these cities, people of an unknown white strain resided in a semi-savage state. I, therefore, have made them the background for this story, and that you will like it is the hope of
THE AUTHOR.
Emerson Hill, Staten Island, N. Y. 1923.
CONTENTS
I. [Introduction.] 3 II. [A Cry for Help.] 11 III. [The Mystery at the Oasis.] 17 IV. [The Mystery Deepens.] 23 V. [Allola’s Story.] 32 VI. [The Tale of the Slave Trader.] 41 VII. [Chasing Ostriches.] 50 VIII. [Bob’s Fight Against Odds.] 58 IX. [A Puzzling Prophecy.] 67 X. [Squelched by an Ostrich.] 76 XI. [The Stranger Revives.] 85 XII. [Amrath Speaks.] 94 XIII. [Korakum Reached.] 101 XIV. [A New Radio Station.] 110 XV. [Meeting the Revolutionists.] 119 XVI. [Revolt of the Exiles.] 129 XVII. [The Fight for the Pass.] 136 XVIII. [A Dark Hour.] 147 XIX. [At Low Ebb.] 153 XX. [An Old Friend Appears.] 159 XXI. [Reunion.] 166 XXII. [Frank to the Rescue.] 176 XXIII. [The Fliers Warn Korakum.] 182 XXIV. [Into the Coliseum.] 190 XXV. [A Surprise for the Janissaries.] 199 XXVI. [The Revolutionists Succeed.] 207 XXVII. [Athensi Falls.] 213 XXVIII. [Conclusion.] 219