fall, it is that woodpile. Even when I sit above,
secure with lights, if by chance I hear tappings from below--such noises
are common on a windy night--I know that it is the African Magician
pounding for the genie, the sound echoing through the hollow earth. It is
matter of doubt whether the iron bars so usual on basement windows serve
chiefly to keep burglars out, or whether their greater service is not
their defense of western Christianity against the invasion from the East
which, except for these bars, would enter here as by a postern. At a
hazard, my suspicion would fall on the iron doors that open inwards in the
base of chimneys. We have been fondly credulous that there is nothing but
ash inside and mere siftings from the fire above; and when, on an
occasion, we reach in with a trowel for a scoop of this wood-ash for our
roses, we laugh at ourselves for our scare of being nabbed. But some day
if by way of experiment you will thrust your head within--it's a small
hole and you will be besmirched beyond anything but a Saturday's
reckoning--you will see that the pit goes off in darkness--_downward_. It
was but the other evening as we were seated about the fire that there came
upward from the basement a gibbering squeak. Then the woodpile fell over,
for so we judged the clatter. Is it fantastic to think that some dark and
muffled Persian, after his dingy tunneling from the banks of the Tigris,
had climbed the pile of wood for a breath of night at the window and, his
foot slipping, the pile fell over? Plainly, we heard him scuttling back to
the ash-pit.

Be these things as they may, when you have arrived in Bagdad--and it is
best that you travel over land and sea--if you be serious in your zest,
you will not be satisfied, but will journey a thousand miles more at the
very least, in whatever direction is steepest. And you will turn the
flanks of seven mountains, with seven villainous peaks thereon. For the
very number of them will put a spell on you. And you will cross running
water, that you leave no scent for the world behind. Such journey would be
the soul of truantry and you should set out upon the road every spring
when the wind comes warm.

Now the medieval pilgrimage in its day, as you very well know, was a most
popular institution. And the reasons are as plentiful as blackberries. But
in the first place and foremost, it came always in the spring. It was like
a tonic, iron for the blood. There were many men who wer