1872 FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN IN A THOUSAND YEARS by Hans Christian Andersen YES, in a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steamthrough the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America willbecome visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see themonuments and the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just aswe in our time make pilgrimages to the tottering splendors of SouthernAsia. In a thousand years they will come! The Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine still roll their course,Mont Blanc stands firm with its snow-capped summit, and the NorthernLights gleam over the land of the North; but generation aftergeneration has become dust, whole rows of the mighty of the moment areforgotten, like those who already slumber under the hill on whichthe rich trader, whose ground it is, has built a bench, on which hecan sit and look out across his waving corn fields. "To Europe!" cry the young sons of America; "to the land of ourancestors, the glorious land of monuments and fancy- to Europe!" The ship of the air comes. It is crowded with passengers, forthe transit is quicker than by sea. The electro-magnetic wire underthe ocean has already telegraphed the number of the aerial caravan.Europe is in sight. It is the coast of Ireland that they see, butthe passengers are still asleep; they will not be called till they areexactly over England. There they will first step on European shore, inthe land of Shakespeare, as the educated call it; in the land ofpolitics, the land of machines, as it is called by others. Here they stay a whole day. That is all the time the busy race candevote to the whole of England and Scotland. Then the journey iscontinued through the tunnel under the English Channel, to France, theland of Charlemagne and Napoleon. Moliere is named, the learned mentalk of the classic school of remote antiquity. There is rejoicing andshouting for the names of heroes, poets, and men of science, whomour time does not know, but who will be born after our time inParis, the centre of Europe, and elsewhere. The air steamboat flies over the country whence Columbus wentforth, where Cortez was born, and where Calderon sang dramas insounding verse. Beautiful black-eyed women live still in theblooming valleys, and the oldest songs speak of the Cid and theAlhambra. Then through the air, over the sea, to Italy, where once layold, everlasting Rome. It has vanished! The Campagna lies desert. Asingle ruined wall is shown as the remains of St. Peter's, but thereis a doubt if this ruin be genuine. Next to Greece, to sleep a night in the grand hotel at the topof Mount Olympus, to say that they have been there; and the journey iscontinued to the Bosphorus, to rest there a few hours, and see theplace where Byzantium lay; and where the legend tells that the haremstood in the time of the Turks, poor fishermen are now spreading theirnets. Over the remains of mighty cities on the broad Danube, citieswhich we in our time know not, the travellers pass; but here andthere, on the rich sites of those that time shall bring forth, thecaravan sometimes descends, and departs thence again. Down below lies Germany, that was once covered with a close net ofrailway and canals, the region where Luther spoke, where Goethesang, and Mozart once held the sceptre of harmony. Great names shinethere, in science and in art, names that are unknown to us. One daydevoted to seeing Germany, and one for the North, the country ofOersted and Linnaeus, and for Norway, the land of the old heroes andthe young Normans. Iceland is visited on the journey home. The geysersburn no more, Hecla is an extinct volcano, but the rocky island isstill fixed in the midst of the foaming sea, a continual monument oflegend and poetry. "There is really a great deal to be seen in Europe," says theyoung American, "and we have seen it in a week, according to thedirections of the great traveller" (and here he mentions the name ofone of his contemporaries) "in his celebrated work, 'How to See AllEurope in a Week.'" THE END.