s
I had been wearing. Moved quite beyond myself, I took them up
and threw them straight at Good's head -- and hit it.

Afterwards I slept the sleep of the just, and a very heavy sleep
it must be. As for Good, I don't know if he went to sleep or
if he continued to pass Sorais' beauties in mental review, and,
what is more, I don't care.

CHAPTER XIII
ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE

And now the curtain is down for a few hours, and the actors in
this novel drama are plunged in dewy sleep. Perhaps we should
except Nyleptha, whom the reader may, if poetically inclined,
imagine lying in her bed of state encompassed by her maidens,
tiring women, guards, and all the other people and appurtenances
that surround a throne, and yet not able to slumber for thinking
of the strangers who had visited a country where no such strangers
had ever come before, and wondering, as she lay awake, who they
were and what their past has been, and if she was ugly compared
to the women of their native place. I, however, not being poetically
inclined, will take advantage of the lull to give some account
of the people among whom we found ourselves, compiled, needless
to state, from information which we subsequently collected.

The name of this country, to begin at the beginning, is Zu-Vendis,
from Zu, 'yellow', and Vendis, 'place or country'. Why it is
called the Yellow Country I have never been able to ascertain
accurately, nor do the inhabitants themselves know. Three reasons
are, however, given, each of which would suffice to account for
it. The first is that the name owes its origin to the great
quantity of gold that is found in the land. Indeed, in this
respect Zu-Vendis is a veritable Eldorado, the precious metal
being extraordinarily plentiful. At present it is collected
from purely alluvial diggings, which we subsequently inspected,
and which are situated within a day's journey from Milosis, being
mostly found in pockets and in nuggets weighing from an ounce
up to six or seven pounds in weight. But other diggings of a
similar nature are known to exist, and I have besides seen great
veins of gold-bearing quartz. In Zu-Vendis gold is a much commoner
metal than silver, and thus it has curiously enough come to pass
that silver is the legal tender of the country.

The second reason given is, that at certain times of the year
the native grasses of the country, which are very sweet and good,
turn as yellow as ripe corn; and th