uty of the
youth of the world. She deemeth herself to be the middle of Earth,
and hath four gates facing outward to the Nations. There sits
outside her eastern gate a colossal god of stone. His face flushes
with the lights of dawn. When the morning sunlight warms his lips
they part a little, and he giveth utterance to the words "Oon Oom,"
and the language is long since dead in which he speaks, and all his
worshippers are gathered to their tombs, so that none knoweth what
the words portend that he uttereth at dawn. Some say that he greets
the sun as one god greets another in the language thereof, and
others say that he proclaims the day, and others that he uttereth
warning. And at every gate is a marvel not credible until beholden.'

And I gathered three friends and said to them: 'We are what we have
seen and known. Let us journey now and behold Babbulkund, that our
minds may be beautified with it and our spirits made holier.'

So we took ship and travelled over the lifting sea, and remembered
not things done in the towns we knew, but laid away the thoughts of
them like soiled linen and put them by, and dreamed of Babbulkund.

But when we came to the land of which Babbulkund is the abiding
glory, we hired a caravan of camels and Arab guides, and passed
southwards in the afternoon on the three days' journey through the
desert that should bring us to the white walls of Babbulkund. And
the heat of the sun shone upon us out of the bright grey sky, and
the heat of the desert beat up at us from below.

About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs
unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of
the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it
suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a
camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to him:

'Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are brothers,
and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art bound by
thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not accursed
by the prophet.'

The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed his
legs and answered:

'Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel.
Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where
Oonrana, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old
stream Plegathanees. These, together, enter her northern gate
rejoicing. Of old they f