o,
for some of the streets were occupied entirely by shops, though who,
except the inhabitants, patronised them, was a question, since all the
indications pointed to the fact that there was no trade done with the
outside world. The commodities exposed for sale seemed to consist
mainly of fruit, vegetables, flowers, confectionery, what looked like
bread in various fanciful shapes, embroideries, jewellery, silks, soft
woollen materials, paintings, lamps and lanterns, harness, and other
goods too numerous to mention.

What surprised the visitors most of all, perhaps, in this wonderful city
was the extraordinarily lavish use made of gold; to them it appeared
that everything that could possibly be made of gold was of that metal;
and it was not until some time afterwards that they learned that gold
was the most common of the metals with the Uluans, who valued it only
because of its untarnishability and beauty of colour.

The wider thoroughfares, squares, and the spacious public gardens
through which the cavalcade passed contained a fair number of people,
although the visitors discovered, later on, that this was the hour when
most of the inhabitants who were not called abroad by business preferred
to remain in the seclusion of their own houses and gardens, this being
the hottest hour of the day. Naturally, Earle and Dick regarded with
some curiosity the people who paused to regard them as they passed, and
they came to the conclusion that, on the whole, the Uluans were a
distinctly attractive-looking people, the women especially reminding
Earle of the Italians, not only as regarded the regularity of their
features, but also in the grace of their form and carriage.

At length the cavalcade came to a halt in a spacious and beautiful
square, situated, as the visitors judged, in about the centre of the
city. One side of this square was entirely occupied by an enormous,
lofty, and handsome building, the central portion of which was
surmounted by an immense dome, covered with plates of gold, arranged in
tiers or bands of different shapes among which that of the lozenge was
the most conspicuous, while each corner of the building was crowned with
a smaller dome, similarly covered and ornamented. Each of the five
domes bore on its summit, as a sort of finial, the figure of a winged
serpent, half of its body being arranged in a coil, while the other
half, with outstretched wings, was upreared in a graceful curve. A
similar figure