r keeping--were
depressing habitations for breathing mortals like ourselves. Either by
accident or by the orders of _She_, the space in front of the cave where
we had beheld that awful dance was perfectly clear of spectators. Not
a soul was to be seen, and consequently I do not believe that our
departure was known to anybody, except perhaps the mutes who waited on
_She_, and they were, of course, in the habit of keeping what they saw
to themselves.

In a few minutes' time we were stepping out sharply across the great
cultivated plain or lake bed, framed like a vast emerald in its setting
of frowning cliff, and had another opportunity of wondering at the
extraordinary nature of the site chosen by these old people of Kor for
their capital, and at the marvellous amount of labour, ingenuity, and
engineering skill that must have been brought into requisition by the
founders of the city to drain so huge a sheet of water, and to keep
it clear of subsequent accumulations. It is, indeed, so far as my
experience goes, an unequalled instance of what man can do in the face
of nature, for in my opinion such achievements as the Suez Canal or
even the Mont Cenis Tunnel do not approach this ancient undertaking in
magnitude and grandeur of conception.

When we had been walking for about half an hour, enjoying ourselves
exceedingly in the delightful cool which about this time of the day
always appeared to descend upon the great plain of Kor, and which in
some degree atoned for the want of any land or sea breeze--for all wind
was kept off by the rocky mountain wall--we began to get a clear view of
what Billali had informed us were the ruins of the great city. And even
from that distance we could see how wonderful those ruins were, a fact
which with every step we took became more evident. The town was not
very large if compared to Babylon or Thebes, or other cities of remote
antiquity; perhaps its outer wall contained some twelve square miles of
ground, or a little more. Nor had the walls, so far as we could judge
when we reached them, been very high, probably not more than forty feet,
which was about their present height where they had not through the
sinking of the ground, or some such cause, fallen into ruin. The reason
of this, no doubt, was that the people of Kor, being protected from any
outside attack by far more tremendous ramparts than any that the hand of
man could rear, only required them for show and to guard against civil
di