fields sown with corn and outlined by
trees. Village folk, also, clad in long, grey gowns, were labouring on
the land, or, their day's toil finished, driving their beasts homewards
along roads built upon the banks of the irrigation dykes, towards the
hamlets that were placed on rising knolls amidst tall poplar groves.

In its sharp contrast with the arid deserts and fearful mountains
amongst which we had wandered for so many years, this country struck us
as most charming, and indeed, seen by the red light of the sinking sun
on that spring day, even as beautiful with the same kind of beauty
which is to be found in Holland. One could understand too that these
landowners and peasant-farmers would by choice be men of peace, and what
a temptation their wealth must offer to the hungry, half-savage tribes
of the mountains.

Also it was easy to guess when the survivors of Alexander's legions
under their Egyptian general burst through the iron band of snow-clad
hills and saw this sweet country, with its homes, its herds, and its
ripening grass, that they must have cried with one voice, "We will march
and fight and toil no more. Here we will sit us down to live and die."
Thus doubtless they did, taking them wives from among the women of the
people of the land which they had conquered--perhaps after a single
battle.

Now as the light faded the wreaths of smoke which hung over the distant
Fire-mountain began to glow luridly. Redder and more angry did they
become while the darkness gathered, till at length they seemed to be
charged with pulsing sheets of flame propelled from the womb of the
volcano, which threw piercing beams of light through the eye of the
giant loop that crowned its brow. Far, far fled those beams, making
a bright path across the land, and striking the white crests of the
bordering wall of mountains. High in the air ran that path, over the
dim roofs of the city of Kaloon, over the river, yes, straight above
us, over the mountains, and doubtless--though there we could not follow
them--across the desert to that high eminence on its farther side
where we had lain bathed in their radiance. It was a wondrous and most
impressive sight, one too that filled our companions with fear, for the
steersmen in our boats and the drivers on the towing-path groaned aloud
and began to utter prayers. "What do they say?" asked Leo of Simbri.

"They say, lord, that the Spirit of the Mountain is angry, and passes
down yonder flying