No one could imagine your pain when the twins died. How could you fulfil your destiny as a great Mughal emperor if you had no heir? You travelled to Sikri, the remote village west of Agra, to consult the Sufi hermit Chishti.
‘You must have faith,’ he said. Soon after, Jodha Bai, your Hindu Queen, gave birth to a son. Your joy knew no bounds; you would honour Chishti; you would build a great city; you would make auspicious Sikri your capital.
You oversaw the planning personally, creating a delightful arrangement of squares and bazaars around a silver lake. In just five years Fatehpur Sikri was complete. You invited representatives from all religions to debate in your city, and made great advances in administration, creating fairer laws.
The city swelled and prospered. It was a golden age. The caravanserais were so packed that visiting Portuguese priests complained about the noise.
But in just fifteen years the land around the city was exhausted and the lake became dry. In 1585 you moved your capital to Delhi, leaving Fatehpur Sikri to decay. All that remains is your crumbling palace and the Great Mosque, the silent home of the reclusive Chishti’s tomb.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Ephesus
A plume of dust showed their journey along the coast. You told your family to take the goats into the hills and hide.
But the scouts who came were no bandits. Their armour shone through the dust. They bowed in thanks at the water you offered. You had heard of these Christian crusaders travelling to the holy land.
‘Our king seeks the great port.’
‘This is Ayasalouk, my village.’
They laughed.
‘But where is Ephesus?’
You shrugged. The men showed you a map and you stared at the end of the Cayster River.
‘This is mistaken; it is fields here, land, there is no water, no harbour like this.’
Their map showed fertile land with forests around a magnificent city. ‘Ephesus was the biggest city in the world after Rome. Have you never heard of it? The Temple of Artemis; with its columns encrusted in jewels? It is one of the seven wonders of the world.’
You thought of telling them that sometimes you found carved stones buried in dense layers of silt. But that was five kilometres inland, nowhere near the sea.
The men rode on and your thoughts turned to finding pasture for your goats in your barren, treeless land.
But the scouts who came were no bandits. Their armour shone through the dust. They bowed in thanks at the water you offered. You had heard of these Christian crusaders travelling to the holy land.
‘Our king seeks the great port.’
‘This is Ayasalouk, my village.’
They laughed.
‘But where is Ephesus?’
You shrugged. The men showed you a map and you stared at the end of the Cayster River.
‘This is mistaken; it is fields here, land, there is no water, no harbour like this.’
Their map showed fertile land with forests around a magnificent city. ‘Ephesus was the biggest city in the world after Rome. Have you never heard of it? The Temple of Artemis; with its columns encrusted in jewels? It is one of the seven wonders of the world.’
You thought of telling them that sometimes you found carved stones buried in dense layers of silt. But that was five kilometres inland, nowhere near the sea.
The men rode on and your thoughts turned to finding pasture for your goats in your barren, treeless land.
Hispaniola
How could things come to this? What happened to your paradise island with its white-sand beaches and staggering mountains, with its fertile valleys and rich forests?
In 1492 the Taínos welcomed Columbus with gold, but the diseases he brought wiped them out. When the mines failed on ‘La Isla Espaňola’, Spain turned to other lands to plunder.
In the 1640s, the French took over the eastern side of Hispaniola, bringing your people from Africa in chains. You cleared the land of trees and planted sugar. Your sweat made St-Dominique the richest colony in the world.
You gained independence and called your new country Haiti, ‘mountainous land’. But Haiti had grown barren. You needed farmland to feed your growing nation, timber to make charcoal for fuel. In 1923 Haiti’s forests covered sixty percent of the land; now they cover less than two. The soils are thin and the rains don’t come.
The Spanish side of the island, the Dominican Republic, had been poorer, less populous. But a dictator protected their forests and subsidised imported gas so the poorest did not have to rely on charcoal. Today its forests remain, its lands are still rich, whilst Haiti is one of the poorest and most densely-populated nations in the world.
In 1492 the Taínos welcomed Columbus with gold, but the diseases he brought wiped them out. When the mines failed on ‘La Isla Espaňola’, Spain turned to other lands to plunder.
In the 1640s, the French took over the eastern side of Hispaniola, bringing your people from Africa in chains. You cleared the land of trees and planted sugar. Your sweat made St-Dominique the richest colony in the world.
You gained independence and called your new country Haiti, ‘mountainous land’. But Haiti had grown barren. You needed farmland to feed your growing nation, timber to make charcoal for fuel. In 1923 Haiti’s forests covered sixty percent of the land; now they cover less than two. The soils are thin and the rains don’t come.
The Spanish side of the island, the Dominican Republic, had been poorer, less populous. But a dictator protected their forests and subsidised imported gas so the poorest did not have to rely on charcoal. Today its forests remain, its lands are still rich, whilst Haiti is one of the poorest and most densely-populated nations in the world.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Bodmin Moor
It was spring 1300. Your husband had set out early to begin work. You bent over the fire, raking the glowing turf ‘coals’, adding dampened turves to keep it going through the day, crying a little in the acrid-sweet smoke. Hard weeks lay ahead; cutting, transporting and drying the ten thousand turves your farm would need in the coming year.
Your house was near a Bronze Age settlement. The field boundaries and paths you used were the same. Bodmin Moor had been shaped and changed over hundreds of generations, each careless of the impact they might have. The earliest hunter-gatherers burned swathes of the dense oak and hazel woodland to make hunting easier. Bronze Age farmers thrived, creating more than two hundred settlements. Those who came next cut down more and more trees until, by 1300, you had nothing but the turf to use as fuel. But turf seemed inexhaustible. Moor industries relied on it; streamworking, quarrying and clay-working. In 1305 alone, smelting stream tin used 250 tonnes of turf charcoal. Did you ever think it might run out?
All that remains today is an acid grassland able to support a few sheep and ponies. People revere it for its loneliness; thinking its windswept, barren hills one of the last untouched places in Britain.
Your house was near a Bronze Age settlement. The field boundaries and paths you used were the same. Bodmin Moor had been shaped and changed over hundreds of generations, each careless of the impact they might have. The earliest hunter-gatherers burned swathes of the dense oak and hazel woodland to make hunting easier. Bronze Age farmers thrived, creating more than two hundred settlements. Those who came next cut down more and more trees until, by 1300, you had nothing but the turf to use as fuel. But turf seemed inexhaustible. Moor industries relied on it; streamworking, quarrying and clay-working. In 1305 alone, smelting stream tin used 250 tonnes of turf charcoal. Did you ever think it might run out?
All that remains today is an acid grassland able to support a few sheep and ponies. People revere it for its loneliness; thinking its windswept, barren hills one of the last untouched places in Britain.
Sugar
You saw three ships heading for port. You thought nothing of it until the captain came to your palace. The dashing Italian kissed your hand and said you were beautiful. He said one day the world would know his name. You laughed and took him to your bed.
The four days Christopher Columbus planned in the Canary Islands stretched to a month, you wanted him to stay but always his eyes turned to the sea. You hid your pain. To prove your sweetness, you gave him sugarcane cuttings to take on his voyage. Only when he had gone did you give vent to the true malice of your feelings. Those around you knew your cruelty.
Your legacy would span the world, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio. Those few stems you gave him would leave entire countries in poverty. Vast lands would be deforested to make way for sugar plantations and the hungry crop would exhaust the soil. Millions of Africans would be enslaved and shipped around the world. And the global society which would emerge five hundred years later would be smitten with an insatiable desire for sweetness in spite of the obesity and global diabetes epidemic it would cause. All this from a single gesture from a gracious, cruel hand.
The four days Christopher Columbus planned in the Canary Islands stretched to a month, you wanted him to stay but always his eyes turned to the sea. You hid your pain. To prove your sweetness, you gave him sugarcane cuttings to take on his voyage. Only when he had gone did you give vent to the true malice of your feelings. Those around you knew your cruelty.
Your legacy would span the world, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio. Those few stems you gave him would leave entire countries in poverty. Vast lands would be deforested to make way for sugar plantations and the hungry crop would exhaust the soil. Millions of Africans would be enslaved and shipped around the world. And the global society which would emerge five hundred years later would be smitten with an insatiable desire for sweetness in spite of the obesity and global diabetes epidemic it would cause. All this from a single gesture from a gracious, cruel hand.
Monday, 11 January 2010
St Matthew Island
You had heard of St Matthew Island, the narrow strip of arctic tundra far out in the Bering Sea. You had heard how in 1944 the US Coast Guard had shipped in twenty nine reindeer as food for the navigation station personnel, and how in the rush of the end of the war they had been left behind.
You were curious about what would have happened to a herd with abundant food and no predators, and in 1957 you got a chance to visit. You found 1,350 fat reindeer. It seemed ideal; the herd density matched the capacity of the land. But small patches of overgrazing made you wonder.
Six years later you went back to find innumerable tracks and droppings and bent-over willows. The reindeer numbers had exploded to 6,000, but they were thinner now, stressed.
The winter of 1965 was too severe to return. A plane flew over but saw no deer. The pilot refused to fly lower. Did you miss them? In July 1966 you found an island littered with skeletons and only forty two reindeer. There were no active males. Soon the herd would be extinct. The unintended experiment had come full circle; arctic foxes would again be the largest mammal on this windswept island.
You were curious about what would have happened to a herd with abundant food and no predators, and in 1957 you got a chance to visit. You found 1,350 fat reindeer. It seemed ideal; the herd density matched the capacity of the land. But small patches of overgrazing made you wonder.
Six years later you went back to find innumerable tracks and droppings and bent-over willows. The reindeer numbers had exploded to 6,000, but they were thinner now, stressed.
The winter of 1965 was too severe to return. A plane flew over but saw no deer. The pilot refused to fly lower. Did you miss them? In July 1966 you found an island littered with skeletons and only forty two reindeer. There were no active males. Soon the herd would be extinct. The unintended experiment had come full circle; arctic foxes would again be the largest mammal on this windswept island.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
The American dustbowl
On Sunday April 14 1935, after four years of drought, your family was at church. ‘Give us back our lush green land,’ you prayed, but that afternoon the worst of the black blizzards hit.
The house shook. Dust squeezed past the wet rags at the windows, filling the air. Anxiously you listened. Your father had gone into the biting blackness to settle the cattle. Finally he returned, choking, spitting up mud.
The pioneers had called your tree-less land the ‘Great American Desert’. Experts had warned the lack of crop rotation and deep ploughing would leave soil exposed to the wind. But the farmers hadn't listened.
People died from the dust, the rest began to starve. Proud, your father refused handouts, but soon he had no choice: seven failed harvests out of eight. He sold the cattle, watched them slaughtered. You packed your meagre belongings and left, not even bothering to close the door.
By 1940 2.5 million people had left, and in the next seven years another 5 million would leave, ending single-family farming in the American Great Plains.
The house shook. Dust squeezed past the wet rags at the windows, filling the air. Anxiously you listened. Your father had gone into the biting blackness to settle the cattle. Finally he returned, choking, spitting up mud.
The pioneers had called your tree-less land the ‘Great American Desert’. Experts had warned the lack of crop rotation and deep ploughing would leave soil exposed to the wind. But the farmers hadn't listened.
People died from the dust, the rest began to starve. Proud, your father refused handouts, but soon he had no choice: seven failed harvests out of eight. He sold the cattle, watched them slaughtered. You packed your meagre belongings and left, not even bothering to close the door.
By 1940 2.5 million people had left, and in the next seven years another 5 million would leave, ending single-family farming in the American Great Plains.
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