w he had obtained the leave of Oro to do. There was the
mouth of the cave, and issuing from it Bickley, who by help of one of
the hurricane lamps had been making an examination of the buried
remains of what he supposed to be flying machines. Without doubt it was
nightmare, and I would say nothing to them about it for fear of mockery.

Yet two nights later Oro came again and after the usual preliminaries,
said:

"Humphrey, this night we will visit that mighty American nation, of
which you have told me so much, and the other Neutral Countries."

[At this point there is a gap in Mr. Arbuthnot's M.S., so Oro's
reflections on the Neutral Nations, if any, remain unrecorded. It
continues:]

On our homeward way we passed over Australia, making a detour to do so.
Of the cities Oro took no account. He said that they were too large and
too many, but the country interested him so much that I gathered he must
have given great attention to agriculture at some time in the past. He
pointed out to me that the climate was fine, and the land so fertile
that with a proper system of irrigation and water-storage it could
support tens of millions and feed not only itself but a great part of
the outlying world.

"But where are the people?" he asked. "Outside of those huge hives," and
he indicated the great cities, "I see few of them, though doubtless some
of the men are fighting in this war. Well, in the days to come this must
be remedied."

Over New Zealand, which he found beautiful, he shook his head for the
same reason.

On another night we visited the East. China with its teeming millions
interested him extremely, partly because he declared these to be the
descendants of one of the barbarian nations of his own day. He made
a remark to the effect that this race had always possessed points
and capacities, and that he thought that with proper government and
instruction their Chinese offspring would be of use in a regenerated
world.

For the Japanese and all that they had done in two short generations, he
went so far as to express real admiration, a very rare thing with Oro,
who was by nature critical. I could see that mentally he put a white
mark against their name.

India, too, really moved him. He admired the ancient buildings at Delhi
and Agra, especially the Taj Mahal. This, he declared, was reminiscent
of some of the palaces that stood at Pani, the capital city of the Sons
of Wisdom, before it was destroyed by the Barbari