by men. They
toiled, but not oppressively; they had food and clothing sufficient for
their needs; they had days and seasons of rest; they made much of music
and singing, and there was love among them, and little children.

It was marvellous with what confidence and precision they went about their
ordered world. Everything, you see, had been made to fit their needs; each
of the radiating paths of the valley area had a constant angle to the
others, and was distinguished by a special notch upon its kerbing; all
obstacles and irregularities of path or meadow had long since been cleared
away; all their methods and procedure arose naturally from their special
needs. Their senses had become marvellously acute; they could hear and
judge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces away--could hear the
very beating of his heart. Intonation had long replaced expression with
them, and touches gesture, and their work with hoe and spade and fork was
as free and confident as garden work can be. Their sense of smell was
extraordinarily fine; they could distinguish individual differences as
readily as a dog can, and they went about the tending of the llamas, who
lived among the rocks above and came to the wall for food and shelter,
with ease and confidence. It was only when at last Nunez sought to assert
himself that he found how easy and confident their movements could be.

He rebelled only after he had tried persuasion.

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight. "Look you
here, you people," he said. "There are things you do not understand in
me."

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces
downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best to
tell them what it was to see. Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelids
less red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy she
was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade. He spoke of the
beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise,
and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became
condemnatory. They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, but
that the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end of
the world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the
dew and the avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world had
neither end nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts were
wicked. So far as