Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849. Various
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Название: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849

Автор: Various

Издательство: Public Domain

Жанр: Книги о Путешествиях

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СКАЧАТЬ by thousands of years, and make out of them a dream that shall, like an Arabian magician, take the dreamer back to the Flood – is a happiness enjoyed by few. We never envied traveller more than we once did that lady who came suddenly upon the Etrurian monument, in which there was just aperture enough to see for a moment only a sitting figure, with its look and drapery of more than thousands of years; who just saw it for a few seconds, preserved only in the stillness of antiquity, and falling to dust at her very breathing. Not so ancient the monument, but of like character the discovery of him who, digging within the walls of his own house at Portici, came upon marble steps that led him down and down, till he found before him, in the obscure, a white marble equestrian statue the size of life. If one could be made a poet, these two incidents were enough. The interior of Sardinia has been hitherto a kind of "terra incognita." Mr Tyndale must therefore have ascended and descended its craggy or wooded mountains, and threaded its ravines, and crossed its fertile or desolate plains, with no common feeling of expectation; and though the frequent "Noraghe" and "Sepolture de is Gigantes," and their accompanying strange conical stones, were not of a character to fill him with that amazement produced by the above-mentioned incidents, they were sufficiently mysterious, and the attempt to reach them in some instances sufficiently adventurous – to keep alive the mind, and stir the imagination to the working out visions, and conjuring up the seeming-probable existences of the past, or wilder dreams, in such variety as reason deduced or fancy willed. On one occasion he descended an aperture, in a domed chamber of a Noraghe, groped his way through a subterranean passage, and came upon some finely-pulverised matter, "about fifteen inches deep, which at first appeared to be earth, but on scraping into it were several human bones, some broken and others mouldering away on being touched." But here the reader unacquainted with Sardinia, as it may be presumed very many are, may ask something about these Noraghe, with their domed chambers, and the Sepolture. There may be a preliminary inquiry into the origin of the inhabitants. Various are the statements of different authors: without following chronological order, we may readily concur in their conclusions, that the island was peopled by Phœnician, Libyan, Tyrrhenian, Greek, Trojan, and other colonies – unless the disquisitions of some historians of our day would compel us to reject the Trojans, in the doubt as to the existence of Troy itself. But many of these may have been only partial, temporary immigrations, which found a people in prior possession. The argument is strongly in favour of the supposition that the Sarde nation are of Phœnician origin, and that its antiquities are Phœnician, or of a still earlier epoch. In descending to more historic times, we find the Carthaginians exercising influence there as early as 700 B.C., and that the island suffered severely from the alternate sway of the rival powers of Rome and Carthage. And here we are disposed to rest, utterly disinclined to follow the labyrinth of cruelties which the history of every people, nation, and language under the sun presents.

      If, at least for the present moment, a disgust of history is a disqualification for the notice of such a work as this before us, the reader must be referred to the book itself at once; but there are in it so many subjects of interest, both as to customs, manners, and some characters that shine out from the dark pages of history here and there, that we venture on, not careful of the thread, but with a purpose of taking it up, wherever there may be a promise of amusement. There is little pleasure in recording how many hundreds of thousands were put to the sword by Carthaginians, Romans, and, subsequently, Vandals and Goths; nor the various tyrannies arising out of contests for the possession of the island, which have been continually inflicted upon the people by the European powers of Christian times. Mankind never did, and it may be supposed never will, let each other alone. We are willing to believe that peace and security, for any continuance, is not for man on earth, and that his nature requires this universal stirring activity of aggression and defence, for the development of his powers – and that out of this evil comes good. Where would be virtue without suffering? Yet we are not always in the humour to sit out the tragedy of human life. There are moments when the present and real troubles of our own times press too heavily on the spirits, and we shrink from the scrutiny of past results, through a dread of a similar future, and gladly seek relief from bitter truths in lighter speculations. In such a humour we confess a dislike to biography, in which kind of reading the future does cast its dark shadow before, and we are constantly haunted by the ghost of the last pages, amid the earnest pursuits and perhaps gaieties of the first. But what that last page of biography is, we find nearly every page of history to be, only far sadder, and far more cruel. The man's tale may tell us that at least he died in his bed; but history draws up the curtain at every act, presenting to the unquiet sight, scenes of wholesale tortures, poisonings, slaughters, and fields of unburied and mutilated carcases.

      It is time to say something of these monuments of great antiquity, the Noraghe, and what they are, before speculating upon who built them. We extract the following account, unable to make it more concise: —

      "All are built on natural or artificial mounds, whether in valleys, plains, or on mountains, and some are partially enclosed at a slight distance, by a low wall of a similar construction to the building. Their essential architectural feature is a truncated cone or tower, averaging from thirty to sixty feet in height, and from one hundred to three hundred in circumference at the base. The majority have no basement, but the rest are raised on one extending either in corresponding or in irregular shape, and of which the perimeter varies from three hundred to six hundred and fifty-three feet, the largest yet measured. The inward inclination of the exterior wall of the principal tower, which almost always is the centre of the building, is so well executed as to present, in its elevation, a perfect and continuously symmetrical line; but sometimes a small portion of the external face of the outer-works of the basements, which are not regular, is straight and perpendicular: such instances are, however, very rare. There is every reason to believe, though without positive proof – for none of the Noraghe are quite perfect – that the cone was originally truncated, and formed thereby a platform on its summit. The material of which they are built being always the natural stone of the locality, we accordingly find them of granite, limestone, basalt, trachyte porphyry, lava, and tufa; the blocks varying in shape and size from three to nine cubic feet, while those forming the architraves of the passages are sometimes twelve feet long, five feet wide, and the same in depth. The surfaces present that slight irregularity which proves the blocks to have been rudely worked by the hammer, but with sufficient exactness to form regular horizontal layers. With few exceptions, the stones are not polygonal, but, when so, are without that regularity of form which would indicate the use of the rule; nor is their construction of the Cyclopean and Pelasgic styles; neither have they any sculpture, ornamental work, or cement. The external entrance, invariably between the E.S.E. and S. by W., but generally to the east of south, seldom exceeds five feet high and two feet wide, and is often so small as to necessitate crawling on all fours. The architrave, as previously mentioned, is very large; but having once passed it, a passage varying from three to six feet high, and two to four wide, leads to the principal domed chamber, the entrance to which is sometimes by another low aperture as small as the first. The interior of the cone consists of one, two, or three domed chambers, placed one above the other, and diminishing in size in proportion to the external inclination; the lowest averaging from fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and from twenty to twenty-five in height. The base of each is always circular, but, when otherwise, elliptical; the edges of the stones, where the tiers overlay each other, are worked off, so that the exterior assumes a semi-ovoidal form, or that of which the section would be a parabola, the apex being crowned with a large flat stone, resting on the last circular layer, which is reduced to a small diameter." "In the interior of the lowest chamber, and on a level with the floor, are frequently from two to four cells or niches, formed in the thickness of the masonry without external communication, varying from three to six feet long, two to four wide, and two to five high, and only accessible by very small entrances. The access to the second and third chambers, as well as to the platform on the top of those Noraghe which have only one chamber, is by a spiral corridor made in the building, either as a simple ramp, with a gradual ascent, or with rough irregular steps made in the stones. The corridor varies from three to six feet in height, and from two to four in width, and the outer side either inclines according to the external wall of the cone, and the inner side according to the domed chamber, or resembles in the section a segment of a circle. The entrance to this spiral corridor is generally in the horizontal passage which leads from the external entrance to СКАЧАТЬ