I’ll ride in golden armor like the sun,
And in my helm a triple plume shall spring
Spangled with diamonds, dancing in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold world.”
Whether this be only “Marlowe’s mighty line”, or whether it be the somewhat fantastic presentation of a dread reality—need not be known. The thoughtful student of history knows only too well just where to turn for human jungle-scenes. And there are many. From Assyrian cruelty boasting of pyramids of severed ears, lips, noses, and the deft art of flaying alive—down to Balkan-Turkish atrocities and Mexican murders the forest-way is long and dark and dreary. We hope light will yet shine upon this way. We dream that the black hags of war and of demon cruelty will not dare disport their hideousness in the future white-light. We would suspend judgment as to the past; we would not condemn Hannibal; we would play on the one-string lyre of hope—forlorn tho’ it be as Watts’ allegorical “Hope”—and we would wait kindly content with God’s plan for this world and for a better world to come.
[Chapter IV.]
TEUTOBERGER WALD
In Germany, in the modern principality of the Lippe, may still be seen traces of the historic struggle between the Roman legions under Varus and the Germanic barbarians led by Arminius. The names “das Winnefeld” (the field of victory), “die Knochenbahn” (the bone-lane), “die Knochenleke” (the bone-brook), “der Mordkessel” (the kettle of slaughter), which still characterize various places in the gloomy Teutoberger Wald, are in themselves reminders of scenes of horror which were once dread realities; while scattered here and there may still be seen traces of the Roman camp—unmistakable evidence of the one time presence of the Roman eagles.