August 28, 2021 • 27 mins
"The Nameless City" is a short horror story written by American writer H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first story set in the Cthulhu Mythos world.
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The Nameless City by H. P. Lovecraft. When I drew nigh the
Nameless City, I knew it wasa cursed I was traveling in a parched
and terrible valley under the moon,and afar I saw it protruding uncannily above
the sands, as parts of acorpse may protrude from an ill made grave.
Fear spoke from the age worn stonesof this hoary survivor of the deluge,
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This great grandfather of the eldest Pyramidand of yewless Aura, repelled me
and bade me retreat from antique andsinister secrets that no man should see,
and no man else had dared tosee. Remote in the desert of Araby
lies the Nameless City, crumbling andinarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by
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the sands of uncounted ages. Itmust have been thus before the first stones
of Memphis were laid, and whilethe bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked.
There is no legend so old asto give it a name, or to
recall that it was ever a lie. But it is told of in whispers
around camp fires, and muttered aboutby grand mams in the tents of sheikhs,
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so that all tribes shun it withoutwholly knowing why. It was of
this place that Abdol Alhazred, themad poet dreamed of the night before he
sang his unexplained couplet that is notdead, which can eternal lie, and
with strange eons, even death maydie. I should have known that the
Arabs had good reason for shunning thenameless city. The city told of in
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strange tales, but seen by noliving man. Yet I defied them and
went into the untrodden waste with mycamel. I alone have seen it.
And that is why no other facebears such hideous lines of fear as mine,
why no other man shivers so horriblywhen the night wind rattles the windows.
When I came upon it in theghastly stillness of unending sleep, it
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looked at me, chilly from therays of a cold moon amidst the desert's
heat. And as I turned itslook, I forgot my triumph at finding
it, and stopped still with mycamel to wait for the dawn. For
hours, I waited till the eastgrew gray, and the stars faded,
and the gray turned to rosy.At light edged with gold. I heard
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a moaning and saw a storm ofsand stirring among the antique stones, though
the sky was clear and the vastreaches of desert still. Then suddenly,
above the desert's far rim came theblazing edge of the sun, seen through
the tiny sandstorm, which was passingaway. And in my fevered state,
I fancied that from some remote depththere came a crash of musical metal to
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hail the fiery disk, as Memnonhails it from the banks of the nile.
My ears rang, and my imaginationseethed as I led my camel slowly
across the sand to that unvocal place, that place which I alone of living
men, had seen. In andout amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and
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places, I wandered, finding nevera carving or inscription to tell of these
men, if men they were,who built this city and dwelt therein so
long ago. The antiquity of thespot was unwholesome, and I longed to
encounter some sign or device to provethat the city was indeed fashioned by mankind.
There were certain proportions and dimensions inthe ruins which I did not like.
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I had with me many tools anddug much within the walls of the
obliterated edifices, but progress was slowand nothing significant was revealed. When night
and the moon returned, I felta chill wind, which brought new fear,
so that I did not dare toremain in the city, And as
I went outside the antique walls tosleep, a small, sighing sandstorm gathered
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behind me, blowing over the graystones. Though the moon was bright and
most of the desert still. Iawakened just at dawn from a pageant of
horrible dreams, my ears ringing asfrom some metallic peal. I saw the
sun peering redly through the last gustsof a little sandstorm that hovered over the
nameless city and marked the quietness ofthe rest of the landscape. Once more,
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I ventured within those brooding ruins thatswelled beneath the sand like an ogre
under a coverlet, and again dugvainly for relics of the forgotten race.
At noon, I rested, andin the afternoon I spent much time tracing
the walls and by gone streets,and the outlines of the nearly vanished buildings.
I saw that the city had beenmighty indeed, and wondered at the
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sources of its greatness. To myself, I pictured all the splendors of an
age so distant that Chaldea could notrecall it, and thought of Sarnath,
the doomed that stood in the landof nar when mankind was young, and
of ib that was carven of graystone before mankind existed. All at once
I came upon a place where thebedrock rose stark through the sand and formed
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a low cliff. And here Isaw with joy what seemed to promise further
traces of the Antediluvian people. Hewnrudely on the face of the cliff were
the unmist takable facades of several smallsquat rock houses or temples, whose interiors
might preserve many secrets of ages tooremote for calculation, though sandstorms had long
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effaced any carvings which may have beenoutside. Very low and sand choked were
all the dark apertures near me.But I cleared one with my spade and
crawled through it, carrying a torchto reveal whatever mysteries it might hold.
When I was inside, I sawthat the cavern was indeed a temple,
and beheld plain signs of the racethat had lived and worshiped before the desert
was a desert. Primitive altars,pillars, and niches, all curiously low,
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were not absent, and though Isaw no sculptures or frescoes, there
were many singular stones clearly shaped intosymbols by artificial means. The lowness of
the chiseled chamber was very strange,for I could hardly kneel upright, but
the area was so great that mytorch showed only part of it at a
time. I shuddered oddly in someof the far corners, for certain altars
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and stones suggested for God and ritesof terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature,
and made me wonder what manner ofmen could have made and frequented such a
temple. When I had seen allthat the place contained, I crawled out
again, avid to find what thetemples might yield. Night had now approached.
Yet the tangible things I had seenmade curiosity stronger than fear, so
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that I did not flee from thelong moon cast shadows that had daunted me
when I first saw the nameless city. In the twilight, I cleared another
aperture, and with a new torch, crawled into it, finding more vague
stones and symbols, though nothing moredefinite than the other temple had contained.
The room was just as low,but much less broad, ending in a
very narrow passage crowded with obscure andcryptical shrines. About these shrines, I
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was prying when the noise of awind and my camel outside broke through the
stillness and drew me forth to seewhat could have frightened the beast. The
moon was gleaming vividly over the primitiveruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand
that seemed blown by a strong butdecreasing wind from some point along the cliff
ahead of me. I knew itwas this chilly, sandy wind which had
disturbed the camel, and was aboutto lead him to a place of better
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shelter, when I chanced to glanceup and saw that there was no wind
atop the cliff. This astonished meand made me fearful again. But I
immediately recalled the sudden local winds thatI had seen and heard before it sunrise
and sunset, and judged it wasa normal thing. I decided it came
from some rock fissure leading to acave, and watched the troubled sand to
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trace it to its source. Soonperceiving that it came from the black orifice
of a temple a long distance southof me, almost out of sight.
Against the choking sand cloud, Iplodded toward this temple, which, as
I neared it loomed larger than therest, and shewed a doorway far less
clogged with caked sand. I wouldhave entered, had not the terrific force
of the icy wind almost quenched mytorch. It poured madly out of the
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dark door, sighing uncannily as itruffled the sand and spread among the weird
ruins. Soon it grew fainter,and the sand grew more and more still,
till finally all was at us again. But a presence seemed stalking among
the spectral stones of the city,and when I glanced at the moon,
it seemed to quiver, as thoughmirrored in unquiet waters. I was more
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afraid than I could explain, butnot enough to dull my thirst for wonder.
So as soon as the wind wasquite gone, I crossed into the
dark chamber from which it had come. This temple, as I had fancied
from the outside, was larger thaneither of those I had visited before,
and was presumably a natural cavern,since it bore winds from some region beyond.
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Here. I could stand quite upright, but saw that the stones and
altars were as low as those inthe other temples. On the walls and
roof I beheld for the first timesome traces of the pictorial art of the
ancient race, curious curling streaks ofpaint that had almost faded or crumbled away,
And on two of the altars Isaw with rising excitement, a maze
of well fashioned curvilinear carvings. AsI held my torch aloft, it seemed
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to me that the shape of theroof was too regular to be natural,
and I wondered what the priest orcutters of stone had first worked upon.
Their engineering skill must have been vast. Then a brighter flare of the fantastic
flame showed that form which I hadbeen seeking, the opening to those remoter
abysses. Whence the sudden wind hadblown, and I grew faint when I
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saw that it was a small andplainly artificial door chiseled in the solid rock.
I thrust my torch within, beholdinga black tunnel with the roof,
arching low over a rough flight ofvery small, numerous and steeply descending steps.
I shall always see those steps inmy dreams, for I came to
learn what they meant. At thetime, I hardly knew whether to call
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them steps or mere footholds. Ina precipitous descent. My mind was whirling
with mad thoughts, and the wordsand warning of Arab prophets seemed to float
across the desert, from the landthat men know to the nameless city that
men dare not know. Yet.I hesitated only for a moment before advancing
through the portal and commencing to climbcautiously down the steep passage feet first,
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as though on a ladder. Itis only in the terrible phantasms of drugs
or delirium that any other man canhave such a descent as mine. The
narrow passage led infinitely down like somehideous, haunted well, and the torch
I held above my head could notlight the unknown depths toward which I was
crawling. I lost track of thehours and forgot to consult my watch,
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though I was frightened when I thoughtof the distance I must have been traversing.
There were changes of direction and ofsteepness, and once I came to
a long, low level passage whereI had to wriggle my feet first along
the rocky floor, holding torch atarm's length beyond my head. The place
was not high enough for kneeling.After that were more of the steep steps,
and I was still scrambling down interminably. When my failing torch died out.
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I do not think I noticed itat the time, for when I
did notice it, I was stillholding it above me as if it were
ablaze. I was quite unbalanced withthat instinct for the strange and the unknown,
which had made me a wanderer uponearth and a haunter of far ancient
and forbidden places. In the darkness, there flashed before my mind fragments of
my cherished treasury of demonic lore,sentences from al has read the mad Era,
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paragraphs from the Apochrphal Nightmares of Damascus, and infamous lines from the Delirious
image Dumont of Gautier. Demitz Irepeated queer extracts and muttered of Afrasia and
the damons that floated with him downthe Oxus, later chanting over and over
again a phrase from one of LordDuncany's tales, the unreverberate blackness of the
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Abyss. Once, when the descentgrew amazingly steep, I recited something in
sing song from Thomas Moore, untilI feared to recite more. A reservoir
of darkness, black as which ascaldrons are when filled with moon drugs in
the eclipse, distilled. Leaning tolook, a foot might pass down through
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that chasm. I saw beneath,as far as vision could explore, the
jetty sides, as smooth as glass, looking as if just varnished o'er with
that dark pit the seat of deaththrows out upon its slimy shore. Time
had quite ceased to exist when myfeet again felt a level floor, and
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I found myself in a place slightlyhigher than the rooms in the two smaller
temples, now so incalculably far abovemy head. I could not quite stand,
but could kneel upright, and inthe dark, I shuffled and crept
hither and thither at random. Isoon knew that I was in a narrow
passage whose walls were lined with casesof wood having glass fronts, as in
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that paleozoic and abysmal place, Ifelt of such things as polished wood and
glass. I shuddered at the possibleimplications. The cases were apparently ranged along
each side of the passage at regularintervals, and were oblong and horizontal,
hideously like coffins in shape and size. When I tried to move two or
three for further examination, I foundthat they were firmly fastened. I saw
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that the passage was a long one, so floundered ahead rapidly, in a
creeping run that would have seemed horriblehad any eye watched me in the blacknessing
from side to side, occasionally tofeel of my surroundings and be sure that
the walls and rows of cases stillstretched on. Man is so used to
thinking visually that I almost forgot thedarkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood
and glass in its low studded monotonyas though I saw it, And then,
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in a moment of indescribable emotion,I did see it. Just when
my fancy merged into real sight.I cannot tell, but there came a
gradual glow ahead, and all atonce I knew that I saw the dim
outlines of a corridor and cases revealedby some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. For a
little while, all was exactly asI had imagined it, since the glow
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was very faint. But as Imechanically kept stumbling ahead into the stronger light,
I realized that my fancy had beenbut feeble. This hall was no
relic of crudity, like the templesin the city above, but a monument
of the most magnificent and exotic art. Rich, vivid and daringly fantastic designs
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and pictures formed a tenuous scheme ofmural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond
description. The cases were of astrange golden wood, with fronts of exquisite
glass, and containing the mummified formsof creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic
dreams of man. To convey anyidea of these monstrosities is impossible. They
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were of the reptile kind, withbody lines suggesting sometimes the crocodile, sometimes
the seal, but more often nothingof which either the naturalist or the paleontologist
ever heard. In size, theyapproximated a small man, and their fore
legs bore delicate and evident feet,curiously like human hands and fingers. But
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strangest of all were their heads,which presented a contour of violating all known
biological principles to nothing. Can suchthings be well compared? In one flash,
I thought of comparisons as varied asthe cat, the bull frog,
the mythic satyr, and the humanbeing. Not Jove himself had had so
colossal and protuberant a forehead. Yetthe horns, and the nose lessness,
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and the alligator like jaw placed thingsoutside all established categories. I debated for
a time on the reality of themummies, half suspecting they were artificial idols,
but soon decided they were indeed somepaleogean species which had lived when the
nameless city was alive. To crowntheir grotesqueness, most of them were gorgeously
enrobed in the costliest of fabrics andlavishly laden with ornaments of gold, jewels
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and unknown shining metals. The importanceof these crawling creatures must have been vast,
for they held first place among thewild designs on the frescoed walls and
ceiling with matchless skill. Had theartists drawn them in a world of their
own, wherein they had cities andgardens fashioned to suit their dimensions. And
I could not help but think thattheir pictured history was allegorical, perhaps shewing
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the progress of the race that worshipedthem. These creatures, I said to
myself, were to men of theNameless City, what the she wolf was
to Rome, or some totem beastis to a tribe of Indians. Holding
this view, I could trace roughlya wonderful full epoch of the Nameless City,
the tale of a mighty sea coastmetropolis that ruled the world before Africa
rose out of the waves, andof its struggles as the sea shrank away
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and the desert crept into the fertilevalley that held it. I saw its
wars and triumphs, its troubles andits defeats, and afterwards its terrible fight
against the desert, when thousands ofits people, here represented in allegory by
the grotesque reptiles, were driven tochisel their way down through the rocks in
some marvelous manner to another world whereoftheir prophets had told them. It was
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all vividly weird and realistic, andits connection with the awesome descent I had
made was unmistakable. I even recognizedthe passages as I crept along the corridor
toward the brighter light. I sawstages of the painted epoch, the leave
taking of the race that had dweltin the Nameless City and the valley around
for ten million years, the racewhose souls shrank from quitting scenes their bodies
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had known so long, where theyhad settled as nomads in the earth's youth,
queuing in the virgin rock, thoseprimal shrines at which they had never
ceased to worship. Now that thelight was better, I studied the pictures
more closely, and, remembering thatthe strange reptiles must represent the unknown men,
pondered upon the customs of the NamelessCity. Many things were peculiar and
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inexplicable. The civilization, which includeda written alphabet, had seemingly risen to
a higher order than those immeasurably latercivilizations of Egypt and Chldea. Yet there
were curious omissions. I could,for example, find no pictures to represent
deaths or funeral customs, save suchas were related to wars, violence,
and plagues, and I wondered thatthe reticians shown concerning natural death. It
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was as though an ideal of immortalityhad been fostered as a cheering illusion.
Still nearer the end of the passagewas painted scenes of the utmost Picturesqueness and
extravagance contrasted views of the nameless cityand its desertion and growing ruin, and
of the strange new realm of paradiseto which the race had hewed its way
through the stone. In these views, the city and the desert valley were
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shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus, hovering over the fallen walls, and
half revealing the splendid perfection of formertimes. Shown spectrally and illusively by the
artist. The paradisal scenes were almosttoo extravagant to be believed, portraying a
hidden world of eternal day, filledwith glorious cities and ethereal hills and valleys.
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At the very last I thought Isaw signs of an artistic anticlimax.
The paintings were less skillful and muchmore bizarre than even the wildest of the
earlier scenes. They seemed to recorda slow decadence of the ancient stock,
coupled with a growing ferocity toward theoutside world, from which it was driven
by the desert. The forms ofthe people, always represented by the sacred
reptiles, appeared to be gradually wastingaway, though their spirit, as shone
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hovering above the ruins by moonlight,gained in proportion. Emaciated priests displayed as
reptiles inornate robes, cursed the upperair and all who breathed it. And
one terrible final scene, a primitivelooking man, perhaps a pioneer of ancient
eram the city of Pillars, tornto pieces by members of the elder race.
I remember how the Arabs feared thenameless city, and was glad that
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beyond this place, the gray wallsand ceiling were bare. As I viewed
the pageant of mural history, Ihad approached very closely to the end of
the low ceiled hall, and wasaware of a gate through which came all
of the illuminating phosphorescence creeping up toit. I cried aloud in transcendent amazement
at what lay beyond, For insteadof other and brighter chambers, there was
only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such as one might fancy when gazing
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down from the peak of Mount Everestupon a sea of sunlit mist. Behind
me was a passage so cramped thatI could not stand upright in it.
Before me was an infinity of subterraneaneffulgence. Reaching down from the passage into
the abyss was the head of asteep flight of steps, small numerous steps
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like those of black passages I hadtraversed. But after a few feet the
glowing vapors concealed everything swung back open. Against the left hand wall of the
passage was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bar
reliefs, which could have closed shutthe whole inner world of light away from
the vaults and passages of rock.I looked at the step and for the
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nonce dared not to try them.I touched the open brass door and could
not move it. Then I sankprone to the stone floor. My mind
aflame with prodigious reflections which not evena deathlike exhaustion could banish. As I
lay still with closed eyes, freeto ponder many things I had lightly noted,
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and the frescoes came back to mewith new and terrible significance, scenes
representing the nameless city in its heyday, the vegetations of the valley around it,
and the distant lands with which itsmerchants traded. The allegory of the
crawling creatures puzzled me by its universalprominence, and I wondered that it would
be so closely followed in a picturedhistory of such importance. In the frescoes,
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the nameless city had been shown inproportions fitted to the reptiles. I
wondered what its real proportions and magnificencehad been, and reflected a moment on
certain oddities I had noticed in theruins. I thought curiously of the lowness
of the primal temples and of theunderground corridor, which were doubtless hewn thus
out of deference to the reptile deitiesthere honored, though it perforce reduced the
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worshippers to crawling. Perhaps the veryrites here involved crawling in imitation of the
creatures. No religious theory, however, could easily explain why the level passages
in that awesome descent should be aslow as the temples, or lower,
since one could not even kneel init. As I thought of the crawling
creatures, whose hideous mummified forms wereso close to me, I felt a
new throb of fear. Mental associationsare curious, and I shrank from the
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idea that, except for the poorprimitive man torn to pieces in the last
painting, mine was the only humanform amidst the many relics and symbols of
the prime mordial life. But asalways in my strange and roving existence,
wonder soon drove out fear for theluminous abyss and what it might contain presented
a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. That a weird world of mystery lay
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far down that flight of peculiarly smallsteps, I could not doubt, and
I hoped to find there those humanmemorials which the painted corridor had failed to
give. The frescoes had pictured unbelievablecities and valleys in this lower realm,
and my fancy dwelt on the richand colossal ruins that awaited me. My
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fears indeed concerned the past rather thanthe future, not even the physical horror
of my position in that cramped corridorof dead reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, miles
below the world I knew and facedby another world of eerie light and mist
could match the lethal dread I feltat the abysmal antiquity of the scene and
its soul. An ancientness so vastthat measurement is feeble, seemed to leer
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down from the primal stones and rockhewn temples in the Nameless City, while
the very latest of the astounding mapsin the frescoes shewed oceans and countenents that
man has forgotten, with only hereand there some vaguely familiar outlines of what
could have happened in the geological agessince the paintings ceased and the death hating
race resentfully succumbed to decay. Noman might say life had once teemed in
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these caverns and in the luminous realmbeyond. Now I was alone with vivid
relics, and I trembled to thinkof the countless ages through which these relics
had kept a silent, deserted vigil. Suddenly there came another burst of that
acute fear which had intermittently seized meever since I first saw the terrible valley
in the Nameless City under a coldmoon. And despite my exhaustion, I
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found myself starting frantically to a sittingposture and gazing back along the black corridor
toward the tunnels that rose to theouter world. My sensations were like those
which had made me shun the namelesscity at night, and were as inexplicable
as they were poignant. In anothermoment, however, I received a still
greater shock, in the form ofa definite sound, the first which had
broken the utter silence of these tomblike depths. It was a deep,
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low moaning, as of a distantthrong of condemned spirits, and came from
the direction in which I was staring. Its volume rapidly grew till it soon
reverberated rightfully through the low passage,and at the same time I became conscious
of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the tunnels and the
city above. The touch of thisair seemed to restore my balance, for
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I instantly recalled the sudden gusts whichhad risen around the mouth of the Abyss
each sunset and sunrise, one ofwhich had indeed revealed the hidden tunnels to
me. I looked at my watchand saw that sunrise was near, so
bracing myself to resist the gale thatwas sweeping down to its cavern home.
As it had swept forth at evening, My fear again waned low, since
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a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodingsover the unknown, more and more madly
poured the shrieking, moaning night windinto the gulf of the inner Earth.
I dropped prone again and clutched vainlyat the floor, for fear of being
swept bodily through the open gate intothe phosphorescent abyss. Such fury I had
not expected, And as I grewaware of an actual slipping of my form
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toward the abyss, I was besetby a thousand new terrors of apprehension and
imagination. The malignancy of the blastawakened incredible fancies. Once more, I
compared myself shudderingly to the only humanimage in that frightful corridor, the man
who was torn to pieces by thenameless race. For in the fiendish clawing
of the swirling currents, there seemedto abide a vindictive rage, all the
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stronger because it was largely impotent.I think, I screamed frantically near the
last. I was almost mad ofthe howling wind raiths. I tried to
crawl against the murderous, invisible torrent, but I could not even hold my
own as I was pushed slowly andinexorably toward the unknown world. Finally,
reason must have wholly snapped, forI fell babbling over and over that unexplainable
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couplet of the mad arab al hazard, who dreamed of the nameless city that
is not dead, which an eternallie, and with strange eons, even
death may die only the grim,brooding desert. Gods know what really took
place, what indescribable struggles and scramblesin the dark I endured, or what
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Abaddon had guided me back to life, where I must always remember and shiver
in the night wind till oblivion orworse claims me. Monstrous, unnatural,
colossal was the thing too far beyondall the ideas of man to be believed
except in the silent, damnable smallhours of the morning, when one cannot
sleep. I have said that thefury of the rushing blast was infernal cacodemoniaco,
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and that its voices were hideous withthe pent up viciousness of desolate eternities.
Presently, these voices, while stillchaotic before me, seemed to my
beating brain to take articulate form behindme, and down there, in the
grave of unnumbered eon, dead antiquities, leagues below the dawnlit world of men,
I heard the ghastly cursing and snarlingof strange tongued fiends. Turning,
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I saw outlined against the luminous etherof the abyss, what could not be
seen against the dusk of the corridor, a nightmare horde of rushing devils,
hate, distorted, grotesquely panoplied,half transparent, devils of a race no
man might mistake the crawling reptiles ofthe Nameless City. And as the wind
died away, I was plunged intothe ghoul pooled darkness of the Earth's bowls.
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For behind the last of the creatures, the great brazen door glanged shut
with a deafening peal of metallic music, whose reverberation swelled out to the distant
world to hail the rising sun,as Memnon hails it from the banks of
the nile end of the Nameless City.
The Nameless City by H. P. Lovecraft. When I drew nigh the
Nameless City, I knew it wasa cursed I was traveling in a parched
and terrible valley under the moon,and afar I saw it protruding uncannily above
the sands, as parts of acorpse may protrude from an ill made grave.
Fear spoke from the age worn stonesof this hoary survivor of the deluge,
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This great grandfather of the eldest Pyramidand of yewless Aura, repelled me
and bade me retreat from antique andsinister secrets that no man should see,
and no man else had dared tosee. Remote in the desert of Araby
lies the Nameless City, crumbling andinarticulate, its low walls nearly hidden by
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the sands of uncounted ages. Itmust have been thus before the first stones
of Memphis were laid, and whilethe bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked.
There is no legend so old asto give it a name, or to
recall that it was ever a lie. But it is told of in whispers
around camp fires, and muttered aboutby grand mams in the tents of sheikhs,
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so that all tribes shun it withoutwholly knowing why. It was of
this place that Abdol Alhazred, themad poet dreamed of the night before he
sang his unexplained couplet that is notdead, which can eternal lie, and
with strange eons, even death maydie. I should have known that the
Arabs had good reason for shunning thenameless city. The city told of in
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strange tales, but seen by noliving man. Yet I defied them and
went into the untrodden waste with mycamel. I alone have seen it.
And that is why no other facebears such hideous lines of fear as mine,
why no other man shivers so horriblywhen the night wind rattles the windows.
When I came upon it in theghastly stillness of unending sleep, it
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looked at me, chilly from therays of a cold moon amidst the desert's
heat. And as I turned itslook, I forgot my triumph at finding
it, and stopped still with mycamel to wait for the dawn. For
hours, I waited till the eastgrew gray, and the stars faded,
and the gray turned to rosy.At light edged with gold. I heard
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a moaning and saw a storm ofsand stirring among the antique stones, though
the sky was clear and the vastreaches of desert still. Then suddenly,
above the desert's far rim came theblazing edge of the sun, seen through
the tiny sandstorm, which was passingaway. And in my fevered state,
I fancied that from some remote depththere came a crash of musical metal to
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hail the fiery disk, as Memnonhails it from the banks of the nile.
My ears rang, and my imaginationseethed as I led my camel slowly
across the sand to that unvocal place, that place which I alone of living
men, had seen. In andout amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and
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places, I wandered, finding nevera carving or inscription to tell of these
men, if men they were,who built this city and dwelt therein so
long ago. The antiquity of thespot was unwholesome, and I longed to
encounter some sign or device to provethat the city was indeed fashioned by mankind.
There were certain proportions and dimensions inthe ruins which I did not like.
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I had with me many tools anddug much within the walls of the
obliterated edifices, but progress was slowand nothing significant was revealed. When night
and the moon returned, I felta chill wind, which brought new fear,
so that I did not dare toremain in the city, And as
I went outside the antique walls tosleep, a small, sighing sandstorm gathered
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behind me, blowing over the graystones. Though the moon was bright and
most of the desert still. Iawakened just at dawn from a pageant of
horrible dreams, my ears ringing asfrom some metallic peal. I saw the
sun peering redly through the last gustsof a little sandstorm that hovered over the
nameless city and marked the quietness ofthe rest of the landscape. Once more,
(04:05):
I ventured within those brooding ruins thatswelled beneath the sand like an ogre
under a coverlet, and again dugvainly for relics of the forgotten race.
At noon, I rested, andin the afternoon I spent much time tracing
the walls and by gone streets,and the outlines of the nearly vanished buildings.
I saw that the city had beenmighty indeed, and wondered at the
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sources of its greatness. To myself, I pictured all the splendors of an
age so distant that Chaldea could notrecall it, and thought of Sarnath,
the doomed that stood in the landof nar when mankind was young, and
of ib that was carven of graystone before mankind existed. All at once
I came upon a place where thebedrock rose stark through the sand and formed
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a low cliff. And here Isaw with joy what seemed to promise further
traces of the Antediluvian people. Hewnrudely on the face of the cliff were
the unmist takable facades of several smallsquat rock houses or temples, whose interiors
might preserve many secrets of ages tooremote for calculation, though sandstorms had long
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effaced any carvings which may have beenoutside. Very low and sand choked were
all the dark apertures near me.But I cleared one with my spade and
crawled through it, carrying a torchto reveal whatever mysteries it might hold.
When I was inside, I sawthat the cavern was indeed a temple,
and beheld plain signs of the racethat had lived and worshiped before the desert
was a desert. Primitive altars,pillars, and niches, all curiously low,
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were not absent, and though Isaw no sculptures or frescoes, there
were many singular stones clearly shaped intosymbols by artificial means. The lowness of
the chiseled chamber was very strange,for I could hardly kneel upright, but
the area was so great that mytorch showed only part of it at a
time. I shuddered oddly in someof the far corners, for certain altars
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and stones suggested for God and ritesof terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature,
and made me wonder what manner ofmen could have made and frequented such a
temple. When I had seen allthat the place contained, I crawled out
again, avid to find what thetemples might yield. Night had now approached.
Yet the tangible things I had seenmade curiosity stronger than fear, so
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that I did not flee from thelong moon cast shadows that had daunted me
when I first saw the nameless city. In the twilight, I cleared another
aperture, and with a new torch, crawled into it, finding more vague
stones and symbols, though nothing moredefinite than the other temple had contained.
The room was just as low,but much less broad, ending in a
very narrow passage crowded with obscure andcryptical shrines. About these shrines, I
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was prying when the noise of awind and my camel outside broke through the
stillness and drew me forth to seewhat could have frightened the beast. The
moon was gleaming vividly over the primitiveruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand
that seemed blown by a strong butdecreasing wind from some point along the cliff
ahead of me. I knew itwas this chilly, sandy wind which had
disturbed the camel, and was aboutto lead him to a place of better
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shelter, when I chanced to glanceup and saw that there was no wind
atop the cliff. This astonished meand made me fearful again. But I
immediately recalled the sudden local winds thatI had seen and heard before it sunrise
and sunset, and judged it wasa normal thing. I decided it came
from some rock fissure leading to acave, and watched the troubled sand to
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trace it to its source. Soonperceiving that it came from the black orifice
of a temple a long distance southof me, almost out of sight.
Against the choking sand cloud, Iplodded toward this temple, which, as
I neared it loomed larger than therest, and shewed a doorway far less
clogged with caked sand. I wouldhave entered, had not the terrific force
of the icy wind almost quenched mytorch. It poured madly out of the
(07:48):
dark door, sighing uncannily as itruffled the sand and spread among the weird
ruins. Soon it grew fainter,and the sand grew more and more still,
till finally all was at us again. But a presence seemed stalking among
the spectral stones of the city,and when I glanced at the moon,
it seemed to quiver, as thoughmirrored in unquiet waters. I was more
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afraid than I could explain, butnot enough to dull my thirst for wonder.
So as soon as the wind wasquite gone, I crossed into the
dark chamber from which it had come. This temple, as I had fancied
from the outside, was larger thaneither of those I had visited before,
and was presumably a natural cavern,since it bore winds from some region beyond.
(08:31):
Here. I could stand quite upright, but saw that the stones and
altars were as low as those inthe other temples. On the walls and
roof I beheld for the first timesome traces of the pictorial art of the
ancient race, curious curling streaks ofpaint that had almost faded or crumbled away,
And on two of the altars Isaw with rising excitement, a maze
of well fashioned curvilinear carvings. AsI held my torch aloft, it seemed
(08:54):
to me that the shape of theroof was too regular to be natural,
and I wondered what the priest orcutters of stone had first worked upon.
Their engineering skill must have been vast. Then a brighter flare of the fantastic
flame showed that form which I hadbeen seeking, the opening to those remoter
abysses. Whence the sudden wind hadblown, and I grew faint when I
(09:15):
saw that it was a small andplainly artificial door chiseled in the solid rock.
I thrust my torch within, beholdinga black tunnel with the roof,
arching low over a rough flight ofvery small, numerous and steeply descending steps.
I shall always see those steps inmy dreams, for I came to
learn what they meant. At thetime, I hardly knew whether to call
(09:35):
them steps or mere footholds. Ina precipitous descent. My mind was whirling
with mad thoughts, and the wordsand warning of Arab prophets seemed to float
across the desert, from the landthat men know to the nameless city that
men dare not know. Yet.I hesitated only for a moment before advancing
through the portal and commencing to climbcautiously down the steep passage feet first,
(10:00):
as though on a ladder. Itis only in the terrible phantasms of drugs
or delirium that any other man canhave such a descent as mine. The
narrow passage led infinitely down like somehideous, haunted well, and the torch
I held above my head could notlight the unknown depths toward which I was
crawling. I lost track of thehours and forgot to consult my watch,
(10:20):
though I was frightened when I thoughtof the distance I must have been traversing.
There were changes of direction and ofsteepness, and once I came to
a long, low level passage whereI had to wriggle my feet first along
the rocky floor, holding torch atarm's length beyond my head. The place
was not high enough for kneeling.After that were more of the steep steps,
and I was still scrambling down interminably. When my failing torch died out.
(10:43):
I do not think I noticed itat the time, for when I
did notice it, I was stillholding it above me as if it were
ablaze. I was quite unbalanced withthat instinct for the strange and the unknown,
which had made me a wanderer uponearth and a haunter of far ancient
and forbidden places. In the darkness, there flashed before my mind fragments of
my cherished treasury of demonic lore,sentences from al has read the mad Era,
(11:07):
paragraphs from the Apochrphal Nightmares of Damascus, and infamous lines from the Delirious
image Dumont of Gautier. Demitz Irepeated queer extracts and muttered of Afrasia and
the damons that floated with him downthe Oxus, later chanting over and over
again a phrase from one of LordDuncany's tales, the unreverberate blackness of the
(11:28):
Abyss. Once, when the descentgrew amazingly steep, I recited something in
sing song from Thomas Moore, untilI feared to recite more. A reservoir
of darkness, black as which ascaldrons are when filled with moon drugs in
the eclipse, distilled. Leaning tolook, a foot might pass down through
(11:48):
that chasm. I saw beneath,as far as vision could explore, the
jetty sides, as smooth as glass, looking as if just varnished o'er with
that dark pit the seat of deaththrows out upon its slimy shore. Time
had quite ceased to exist when myfeet again felt a level floor, and
(12:09):
I found myself in a place slightlyhigher than the rooms in the two smaller
temples, now so incalculably far abovemy head. I could not quite stand,
but could kneel upright, and inthe dark, I shuffled and crept
hither and thither at random. Isoon knew that I was in a narrow
passage whose walls were lined with casesof wood having glass fronts, as in
(12:30):
that paleozoic and abysmal place, Ifelt of such things as polished wood and
glass. I shuddered at the possibleimplications. The cases were apparently ranged along
each side of the passage at regularintervals, and were oblong and horizontal,
hideously like coffins in shape and size. When I tried to move two or
three for further examination, I foundthat they were firmly fastened. I saw
(12:52):
that the passage was a long one, so floundered ahead rapidly, in a
creeping run that would have seemed horriblehad any eye watched me in the blacknessing
from side to side, occasionally tofeel of my surroundings and be sure that
the walls and rows of cases stillstretched on. Man is so used to
thinking visually that I almost forgot thedarkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood
and glass in its low studded monotonyas though I saw it, And then,
(13:16):
in a moment of indescribable emotion,I did see it. Just when
my fancy merged into real sight.I cannot tell, but there came a
gradual glow ahead, and all atonce I knew that I saw the dim
outlines of a corridor and cases revealedby some unknown subterranean phosphorescence. For a
little while, all was exactly asI had imagined it, since the glow
(13:37):
was very faint. But as Imechanically kept stumbling ahead into the stronger light,
I realized that my fancy had beenbut feeble. This hall was no
relic of crudity, like the templesin the city above, but a monument
of the most magnificent and exotic art. Rich, vivid and daringly fantastic designs
(13:58):
and pictures formed a tenuous scheme ofmural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond
description. The cases were of astrange golden wood, with fronts of exquisite
glass, and containing the mummified formsof creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic
dreams of man. To convey anyidea of these monstrosities is impossible. They
(14:18):
were of the reptile kind, withbody lines suggesting sometimes the crocodile, sometimes
the seal, but more often nothingof which either the naturalist or the paleontologist
ever heard. In size, theyapproximated a small man, and their fore
legs bore delicate and evident feet,curiously like human hands and fingers. But
(14:39):
strangest of all were their heads,which presented a contour of violating all known
biological principles to nothing. Can suchthings be well compared? In one flash,
I thought of comparisons as varied asthe cat, the bull frog,
the mythic satyr, and the humanbeing. Not Jove himself had had so
colossal and protuberant a forehead. Yetthe horns, and the nose lessness,
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and the alligator like jaw placed thingsoutside all established categories. I debated for
a time on the reality of themummies, half suspecting they were artificial idols,
but soon decided they were indeed somepaleogean species which had lived when the
nameless city was alive. To crowntheir grotesqueness, most of them were gorgeously
enrobed in the costliest of fabrics andlavishly laden with ornaments of gold, jewels
(15:24):
and unknown shining metals. The importanceof these crawling creatures must have been vast,
for they held first place among thewild designs on the frescoed walls and
ceiling with matchless skill. Had theartists drawn them in a world of their
own, wherein they had cities andgardens fashioned to suit their dimensions. And
I could not help but think thattheir pictured history was allegorical, perhaps shewing
(15:46):
the progress of the race that worshipedthem. These creatures, I said to
myself, were to men of theNameless City, what the she wolf was
to Rome, or some totem beastis to a tribe of Indians. Holding
this view, I could trace roughlya wonderful full epoch of the Nameless City,
the tale of a mighty sea coastmetropolis that ruled the world before Africa
rose out of the waves, andof its struggles as the sea shrank away
(16:08):
and the desert crept into the fertilevalley that held it. I saw its
wars and triumphs, its troubles andits defeats, and afterwards its terrible fight
against the desert, when thousands ofits people, here represented in allegory by
the grotesque reptiles, were driven tochisel their way down through the rocks in
some marvelous manner to another world whereoftheir prophets had told them. It was
(16:30):
all vividly weird and realistic, andits connection with the awesome descent I had
made was unmistakable. I even recognizedthe passages as I crept along the corridor
toward the brighter light. I sawstages of the painted epoch, the leave
taking of the race that had dweltin the Nameless City and the valley around
for ten million years, the racewhose souls shrank from quitting scenes their bodies
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had known so long, where theyhad settled as nomads in the earth's youth,
queuing in the virgin rock, thoseprimal shrines at which they had never
ceased to worship. Now that thelight was better, I studied the pictures
more closely, and, remembering thatthe strange reptiles must represent the unknown men,
pondered upon the customs of the NamelessCity. Many things were peculiar and
(17:14):
inexplicable. The civilization, which includeda written alphabet, had seemingly risen to
a higher order than those immeasurably latercivilizations of Egypt and Chldea. Yet there
were curious omissions. I could,for example, find no pictures to represent
deaths or funeral customs, save suchas were related to wars, violence,
and plagues, and I wondered thatthe reticians shown concerning natural death. It
(17:37):
was as though an ideal of immortalityhad been fostered as a cheering illusion.
Still nearer the end of the passagewas painted scenes of the utmost Picturesqueness and
extravagance contrasted views of the nameless cityand its desertion and growing ruin, and
of the strange new realm of paradiseto which the race had hewed its way
through the stone. In these views, the city and the desert valley were
(18:00):
shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus, hovering over the fallen walls, and
half revealing the splendid perfection of formertimes. Shown spectrally and illusively by the
artist. The paradisal scenes were almosttoo extravagant to be believed, portraying a
hidden world of eternal day, filledwith glorious cities and ethereal hills and valleys.
(18:22):
At the very last I thought Isaw signs of an artistic anticlimax.
The paintings were less skillful and muchmore bizarre than even the wildest of the
earlier scenes. They seemed to recorda slow decadence of the ancient stock,
coupled with a growing ferocity toward theoutside world, from which it was driven
by the desert. The forms ofthe people, always represented by the sacred
reptiles, appeared to be gradually wastingaway, though their spirit, as shone
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hovering above the ruins by moonlight,gained in proportion. Emaciated priests displayed as
reptiles inornate robes, cursed the upperair and all who breathed it. And
one terrible final scene, a primitivelooking man, perhaps a pioneer of ancient
eram the city of Pillars, tornto pieces by members of the elder race.
I remember how the Arabs feared thenameless city, and was glad that
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beyond this place, the gray wallsand ceiling were bare. As I viewed
the pageant of mural history, Ihad approached very closely to the end of
the low ceiled hall, and wasaware of a gate through which came all
of the illuminating phosphorescence creeping up toit. I cried aloud in transcendent amazement
at what lay beyond, For insteadof other and brighter chambers, there was
only an illimitable void of uniform radiance, such as one might fancy when gazing
(19:36):
down from the peak of Mount Everestupon a sea of sunlit mist. Behind
me was a passage so cramped thatI could not stand upright in it.
Before me was an infinity of subterraneaneffulgence. Reaching down from the passage into
the abyss was the head of asteep flight of steps, small numerous steps
(19:56):
like those of black passages I hadtraversed. But after a few feet the
glowing vapors concealed everything swung back open. Against the left hand wall of the
passage was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bar
reliefs, which could have closed shutthe whole inner world of light away from
the vaults and passages of rock.I looked at the step and for the
(20:19):
nonce dared not to try them.I touched the open brass door and could
not move it. Then I sankprone to the stone floor. My mind
aflame with prodigious reflections which not evena deathlike exhaustion could banish. As I
lay still with closed eyes, freeto ponder many things I had lightly noted,
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and the frescoes came back to mewith new and terrible significance, scenes
representing the nameless city in its heyday, the vegetations of the valley around it,
and the distant lands with which itsmerchants traded. The allegory of the
crawling creatures puzzled me by its universalprominence, and I wondered that it would
be so closely followed in a picturedhistory of such importance. In the frescoes,
(21:03):
the nameless city had been shown inproportions fitted to the reptiles. I
wondered what its real proportions and magnificencehad been, and reflected a moment on
certain oddities I had noticed in theruins. I thought curiously of the lowness
of the primal temples and of theunderground corridor, which were doubtless hewn thus
out of deference to the reptile deitiesthere honored, though it perforce reduced the
(21:26):
worshippers to crawling. Perhaps the veryrites here involved crawling in imitation of the
creatures. No religious theory, however, could easily explain why the level passages
in that awesome descent should be aslow as the temples, or lower,
since one could not even kneel init. As I thought of the crawling
creatures, whose hideous mummified forms wereso close to me, I felt a
new throb of fear. Mental associationsare curious, and I shrank from the
(21:49):
idea that, except for the poorprimitive man torn to pieces in the last
painting, mine was the only humanform amidst the many relics and symbols of
the prime mordial life. But asalways in my strange and roving existence,
wonder soon drove out fear for theluminous abyss and what it might contain presented
a problem worthy of the greatest explorer. That a weird world of mystery lay
(22:12):
far down that flight of peculiarly smallsteps, I could not doubt, and
I hoped to find there those humanmemorials which the painted corridor had failed to
give. The frescoes had pictured unbelievablecities and valleys in this lower realm,
and my fancy dwelt on the richand colossal ruins that awaited me. My
(22:32):
fears indeed concerned the past rather thanthe future, not even the physical horror
of my position in that cramped corridorof dead reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, miles
below the world I knew and facedby another world of eerie light and mist
could match the lethal dread I feltat the abysmal antiquity of the scene and
its soul. An ancientness so vastthat measurement is feeble, seemed to leer
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down from the primal stones and rockhewn temples in the Nameless City, while
the very latest of the astounding mapsin the frescoes shewed oceans and countenents that
man has forgotten, with only hereand there some vaguely familiar outlines of what
could have happened in the geological agessince the paintings ceased and the death hating
race resentfully succumbed to decay. Noman might say life had once teemed in
(23:21):
these caverns and in the luminous realmbeyond. Now I was alone with vivid
relics, and I trembled to thinkof the countless ages through which these relics
had kept a silent, deserted vigil. Suddenly there came another burst of that
acute fear which had intermittently seized meever since I first saw the terrible valley
in the Nameless City under a coldmoon. And despite my exhaustion, I
(23:41):
found myself starting frantically to a sittingposture and gazing back along the black corridor
toward the tunnels that rose to theouter world. My sensations were like those
which had made me shun the namelesscity at night, and were as inexplicable
as they were poignant. In anothermoment, however, I received a still
greater shock, in the form ofa definite sound, the first which had
broken the utter silence of these tomblike depths. It was a deep,
(24:04):
low moaning, as of a distantthrong of condemned spirits, and came from
the direction in which I was staring. Its volume rapidly grew till it soon
reverberated rightfully through the low passage,and at the same time I became conscious
of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the tunnels and the
city above. The touch of thisair seemed to restore my balance, for
(24:26):
I instantly recalled the sudden gusts whichhad risen around the mouth of the Abyss
each sunset and sunrise, one ofwhich had indeed revealed the hidden tunnels to
me. I looked at my watchand saw that sunrise was near, so
bracing myself to resist the gale thatwas sweeping down to its cavern home.
As it had swept forth at evening, My fear again waned low, since
(24:47):
a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodingsover the unknown, more and more madly
poured the shrieking, moaning night windinto the gulf of the inner Earth.
I dropped prone again and clutched vainlyat the floor, for fear of being
swept bodily through the open gate intothe phosphorescent abyss. Such fury I had
not expected, And as I grewaware of an actual slipping of my form
(25:08):
toward the abyss, I was besetby a thousand new terrors of apprehension and
imagination. The malignancy of the blastawakened incredible fancies. Once more, I
compared myself shudderingly to the only humanimage in that frightful corridor, the man
who was torn to pieces by thenameless race. For in the fiendish clawing
of the swirling currents, there seemedto abide a vindictive rage, all the
(25:30):
stronger because it was largely impotent.I think, I screamed frantically near the
last. I was almost mad ofthe howling wind raiths. I tried to
crawl against the murderous, invisible torrent, but I could not even hold my
own as I was pushed slowly andinexorably toward the unknown world. Finally,
reason must have wholly snapped, forI fell babbling over and over that unexplainable
(25:52):
couplet of the mad arab al hazard, who dreamed of the nameless city that
is not dead, which an eternallie, and with strange eons, even
death may die only the grim,brooding desert. Gods know what really took
place, what indescribable struggles and scramblesin the dark I endured, or what
(26:12):
Abaddon had guided me back to life, where I must always remember and shiver
in the night wind till oblivion orworse claims me. Monstrous, unnatural,
colossal was the thing too far beyondall the ideas of man to be believed
except in the silent, damnable smallhours of the morning, when one cannot
sleep. I have said that thefury of the rushing blast was infernal cacodemoniaco,
(26:37):
and that its voices were hideous withthe pent up viciousness of desolate eternities.
Presently, these voices, while stillchaotic before me, seemed to my
beating brain to take articulate form behindme, and down there, in the
grave of unnumbered eon, dead antiquities, leagues below the dawnlit world of men,
I heard the ghastly cursing and snarlingof strange tongued fiends. Turning,
(27:00):
I saw outlined against the luminous etherof the abyss, what could not be
seen against the dusk of the corridor, a nightmare horde of rushing devils,
hate, distorted, grotesquely panoplied,half transparent, devils of a race no
man might mistake the crawling reptiles ofthe Nameless City. And as the wind
died away, I was plunged intothe ghoul pooled darkness of the Earth's bowls.
(27:23):
For behind the last of the creatures, the great brazen door glanged shut
with a deafening peal of metallic music, whose reverberation swelled out to the distant
world to hail the rising sun,as Memnon hails it from the banks of
the nile end of the Nameless City.
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