A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

219
Meleks, for we will take the most sumptuous and magnificent of them
all. Tell all the people to present their offerings. Tell them that we
consent to have endless retinues of servants, soldiers, followers, and
attendants. Tell them that with the advent of Almah and Atam-or a new
era begins for the Kosekin, in which every man may be as poor as he
likes, and riches shall be unknown in the land."
These extraordinary words seemed to fill the paupers with rapture.
Exclamations of joy burst from them; they prostrated themselves in an
irrepressible impulse of grateful admiration, as though such promises
could only come from superior beings. Then most of them hurried down
to communicate to the people below the glorious intelligence. Soon it
spread from mouth to mouth, and all the people were filled with the
wildest excitement.
For never before had such a thing been known, and never had such
self-sacrifice been imagined or thought possible, as that the rulers
of the Kosekin could consent to be rich when they might be paupers; to
live together when they might be separate; to dwell in the light when
they might lurk in the deepest cavern gloom; to remain in life when
they might have the blessing of death. Selfishness, fear of death,
love of riches, and love of luxury, these were all unintelligible to
the Kosekin, as much as to us would be self-abnegation, contempt of
death, voluntary poverty, and asceticism. But as with us self-denying
rulers may make others rich and be popular for this, so here among the
Kosekin a selfish ruler might be popular by making others poor. Hence
the words of Almah, as they were made known, gave rise to the wildest
excitement and enthusiasm, and the vast multitude poured forth their
feelings in long shouts of rapturous applause.
Amid this the bodies of the dead were carried down from the pyramid,
and were taken to the Mista Kosek in a long and solemn procession,
accompanied by the singing of wild and dismal chants.
And now the sun, rolling along behind the icy mountain crest, rose
higher and higher every moment, and the bright light of a long day
began to illumine the world. There sparkled the sea, rising far away
like a watery wall, with the horizon high up in the sky; there rose
the circle of giant mountains, sweeping away till they were blended
with the horizon; there rose the terraces of the amir, all glowing
in the sunlight, with all its countless houses and cavern-openings and