e and baking bread, dark forms
like those which worked on the tower of Babel, and burnt lime for it. They
were now brought here by the ease and cheapness of carrying on their
occupations. All that is necessary is to make a hole in the ground, touch
a burning coal to it, and an inexhaustible flame rises forth like a
spring. Behind this range of little flames and fires, rose, in the pale
light, the dirty white walls of the castle, in the centre of which there
flashed from the summit of two lofty pillars great masses of the purest,
clearest, and keenest flame, which were now bent down horizontally and
wreathed like serpents by the force of the wind, and now rose
perpendicularly to the sky, whose dome they lighted up like two vast altar
tapers. We drove around the edifice, and stopped on one side where there
were no flames rising from the earth. A fine rain was falling, but we
remained without while our guide went in to announce us. He came back
immediately with a swarthy Hindoo. The sight of this man impressed me
strangely, and I forgot that he belonged to a remote colony of a few
individuals, and asked myself if we had been suddenly transported to
India, or if India had been brought up to the Caspian.

We went into the court-yard, in which stands the temple, with its two
fire-pillars. About half way up hang a couple of large bells, which the
Hindoo sounded by way of preparing us for what we were to see. There was
something fearful in the loud clangor, and my boys crowded close beside
me. Except our party, no one was to be seen except the swart Geber, in his
white turban and long brown robe, with just enough of a pair of light blue
trowsers visible to bring into distinctness his naked black feet. His
features were noble, and his beard long and black. He looked like a
conjurer, like the lord of an enchanted castle, summoning his spirits. The
hissing fire, as if obeying him, flashed up more brightly at the crash of
the bells; now it was clear as day around us, and now it was twilight as
the wind lowered the flame. My husband and sons and the guide who had
brought us to the place, were all dressed in oriental costume, and I alone
seemed to belong to Europe. A shudder of home-sickness came over me, and
at every moment I expected to see something monstrous, to behold all the
cruelties of a heathenish and barbarous worship.

The interpreter now summoned us to follow the Geber. We were told that the
castle was built by a rich Ind