to an oasis of palm trees standing by a
well and there we gave water to the haughty camels and replenished our
water-bottles and soothed our eyes with the sight of green things and
tarried for many hours in the shade. Some of the men slept, but of
those that remained awake each man sang softly the songs of his own
country, telling of Babbulkund. When the afternoon was far spent
we travelled a little way southwards, and went on through the cool
evening until the sun fell low and we encamped, and as we sat in our
encampment the man in rags overtook us, having travelled all the day,
and we gave him food and drink again, and in the twilight he spoke,
saying:

'I am the servant of the Lord the God of my people and I go to do his
work on Babbulkund. She is the most beautiful city in the world;
there hath been none like her, even the stars of God go envious of her
beauty. She is all white, yet with streaks of pink that pass through
her streets and houses like flames in the white mind of a sculptor,
like desire in Paradise. She hath been carved of old out of a holy
hill, no slaves wrought the City of Marvel, but artists toiling at the
work they loved. They took no pattern from the houses of men, but
each man wrought what his inner eye had seen and carved in marble the
visions of his dream. All over the roof of one of the palace chambers
winged lions flit like bats, the size of every one is the size of the
lions of God, and the wings are larger than any wing created; they are
one above the other more than a man can number, they are all carven
out of one block of marble, the chamber itself is hollowed from it,
and it is borne aloft upon the carven branches of a grove of clustered
tree-ferns wrought by the hand of some jungle mason that loved the
tall fern well. Over the River of Myth, which is one with the Waters
of Fable, go bridges, fashioned like the wisteria tree and like the
drooping laburnum, and a hundred others of wonderful devices, the
desire of the souls of masons a long while dead. Oh! very beautiful is
white Babbulkund, very beautiful she is, but proud; and the Lord the
God of my people hath seen her in her pride, and looking towards
her hath seen the prayers of Nehemoth going up to the abomination
Annolith, and all the people following after Voth. She is very
beautiful, Babbulkund; alas that I may not bless her. I could live
always on one of her inner terraces looking on the mysterious jungle
in her midst and the h