et contained a morsel of food. Which circumstance
hindered the process of thought, and intermittently vexed me with the
reflection that, rich though is the earth, and much thence though
humanity has won by labour, a man may yet be forced to walk hungry...
.

Suddenly the track swerved to the right, and as the walls of grain
opened out before me, there lay revealed a steppe valley, with, flowing
at its bottom, a blue rivulet, and spanning the rivulet, a
newly-constructed bridge which, with its reflection in the water,
looked as yellow as though fashioned of rope. On the further side of
the rivulet some seven white huts lay pressed against a small declivity
that was crowned with a cattle-fold, and amid the silver-grey trunks of
some tall black poplars whose shadows, where they fell upon the hamlet,
seemed as soft as down a knee-haltered horse, was stumping with
swishing tail. And though the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hemp
ensilage, was filled with the sounds of poultry cackling and a baby
crying during the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no way
served to dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was but
part of a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tints
which the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade.

In the centre of the semi-circle of huts there stood a brick-kiln, and
next to it, a high, narrow red chapel which resembled a one-eyed
watchman. And as I stood gazing at the scene in general, a crane
stooped with a faint and raucous cry, and a woman who had come out to
draw water looked as though, as she raised bare arms to stretch herself
upwards--cloud-like, and white-robed from head to foot--she were about
to float away altogether.

Also, near the brick-kiln there lay a patch of black mud in the
glistening, crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins of five
and three were, breechless, and naked from the waist upwards, kneading
yellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as though their one desire in
life had been to impregnate the mud with the red radiance of the sun.
And so much did this laudable task interest me, and engage my sympathy
and attention, that I stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeing
that even in mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that the
deeper the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does that
soil become, and the greater the benefit to the people dwelling on its
surface.

Viewed from above, the scene lay