s and some
pieces of statuary that were placed about, wondering the while
what was going to happen next. Indeed, by this time our minds
were in such a state of complete bewilderment that we were, as
a matter of fact, ready for anything that might arrive. As for
our sense of astonishment, it was pretty well obliterated. Whilst
we were still thus engaged, our friend the captain of the guard
presented himself, and with many obeisances signified that we
were to follow him, which we did, not without doubts and heart-searchings
-- for we guessed that the time had come when we should have
to settle the bill for those confounded hippopotami with our
cold-eyed friend Agon, the High Priest. However, there was no
help for it, and personally I took great comfort in the promise
of the protection of the sister Queens, knowing that if ladies
have a will they can generally find a way; so off we started
as though we liked it. A minute's walk through a passage and
an outer court brought us to the great double gates of the palace
that open on to the wide highway which runs uphill through the
heart of Milosis to the Temple of the Sun a mile away, and thence
down the slope on the farther side of the temple to the outer
wall of the city.

These gates are very large and massive, and an extraordinarily
beautiful work in metal. Between them -- for one set is placed
at the entrance to an interior, and one at that of the exterior
wall -- is a fosse, forty-five feet in width. This fosse is
filled with water and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted
makes the palace nearly impregnable to anything except siege
guns. As we came, one half of the wide gates were flung open,
and we passed over the drawbridge and presently stood gazing
up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing, roadways
in the world. It is a hundred feet from curb to curb, and on
either side, not cramped and crowded together, as is our European
fashion, but each standing in its own grounds, and built equidistant
from and in similar style to the rest, are a series of splendid,
single-storied mansions, all of red granite. These are the town
houses of the nobles of the Court, and stretch away in unbroken
lines for a mile or more till the eye is arrested by the glorious
vision of the Temple of the Sun that crowns the hill and heads
the roadway.

As we stood gazing at this splendid sight, of which more anon,
there suddenly dashed up to the gateway four chariots