"So it appears."

"But I should say the Mehrikan bride had much the freshness of a dried
fig."

"So she had," said Nofuhl; "but those who know only the dried fig have
no regret for the fresh fruit. But the fault was not with the maidens.
Brought up like boys, with the same studies and mental development,
the womanly part of their nature gradually vanished as their minds
expanded. Vigor of intellect was the object of a woman's education."

Then Lev-el-Hedyd exclaimed with great disgust:

"Praises be to Allah for his aid in exterminating such a people!" and
he walked away from the bed, and began looking about the chamber. In a
moment he hastened back to us, saying:

"Here are more jewels! also money!"

Nofuhl eagerly took the pieces.

"Money!" he cried. "Money will tell us more than pages of history!"

There were silver coins of different sizes and two small pieces of
copper. Nofuhl studied them closely.

"The latest date is 1957," he said; "a little less than a thousand
years ago; but the piece may have been in circulation some years
before this woman died; also it may have been coined the very year of
her death. It bears the head of Dennis, the last of the Hy-Burnyan
dictators. The race is supposed to have become extinct before 1990 of
their era."

[Illustration: The Face and Back of One of the Silver Coins.]

I then said:

"Thou hast never told us, O Nofuhl! the cause of their disappearance."

"There were many causes," he answered. "The Mehrikans themselves were
of English origin, but people from all parts of Europe came here in
vast numbers. Although the original comers were vigorous and hardy the
effect of climate upon succeeding generations was fatal. They became
flat-chested and thin, with scanty hair, fragile teeth, and weak
digestions. Nervous diseases unknown to us wrought deadly havoc.
Children were reared with difficulty. Between 1945 and 1960, the last
census of which any record remains, the population decreased from
ninety millions to less than twelve millions. Climatic changes, the
like of which no other land ever experienced, began at that period,
and finished in less than ten years a work made easy by nervous
natures and rapid lives. The temperature would skip in a single day
from burning heat to winter's cold. No constitution could withstand
it, and this vast continent became once more an empty wilderness."

Much more of the same nature he told us, but I am too sleepy to write
longe