CHAPTER IXThe Valley of Rasselas
It was an incongruous position, and a mind responsive only to the ludicrous would have been delighted with mirth over it. But it was really no joke, and if Hopkins, whose risibilities were the least easily subdued, had ventured upon one of his whirlwinds of laughter, instead of sedately rising (enjoining us to imitate him) and bowing profoundly, it might have had a tragic termination.
As it was, Hopkins himself actually prescribed our solemn behavior. It somehow appealed just then to his freakish sense of humor to appear portentously grave and decorous, and as he kept up his salaaming we fell in with the trick, and were bobbing away with the gravity of mandarins.
The crowd, as we slammed into the road, were pretty well upset. There was a queer gurgling groan, and then a shout, and a few of the men rushed forward with leveled poles, from which the black squirming ribbons uncannily unrolled, as if to strike us. Our appealing gestures for forbearance disarmed them, and then curiously some of them began to smile. Hopkins’ later reflection that we would probably have “made a meal sack split open with diversion,” was about correct, and it must have been the preposterous absurdity of it all, conjoined with our indefatigable rolling up and down, and some improvised gesture of the Yankee,expressive of submission and subjection, that gradually increased their merriment, until we had in front of us a friendly audience, simmering with amusement.
The commotion and noise of the bending, breaking branches had been seen and heard much further along the cortege, and it had caught the eye of the dignitaries on the wheeled platform. In a few minutes a number of these ambling, beetle-like worthies arrived and, withdrawing cautiously into the protecting circle of the Eskimo youth, gazed at us with unaffected astonishment. We now had the best opportunity to see them at short range, and this was so desirable that we brought our antics to a close, reciprocating their scrutiny with as keen an inspection on our part. The impression made on me, on all of us, was favorable.
The faces of these short men were remarkable for an unmistakable gravity; their eyes, from which they had removed the goggles, were penetrating and bright, sunken beneath arched and conspicuous eyebrows, and set alongside of prominent aquiline noses. The lower parts of their faces were weak, narrowed, and clothed with a scanty pointed beard. Their brows were broad, high and of alabaster whiteness. This colorlessness pervaded their whole anatomy, related at it were, to the thinness of their legs, their slim long arms and pendulous fingers, their flat and insufficient feet. We noticed then that they carried in their belts tubes of metal similar or identical to the wand-like ones that had seemed to aid their flight with the balloons.
Their study of us was emphasized by considerable stroking of the beards, shrugging of the shoulders, and an occasional despairing waving of the hands. Everyone, everything, remained motionless while these wiseacres made up their minds as to the meaning of our intrusion, or endeavored tomeet the broader problem of what do to with us. And so the whole mass slowly gathered, the first ranks of the muscular Eskimo older men, the drummers and the cymbalists, the fluttering, diversified groups of the little people; they crushed into the woods, blocked the road, climbed up into the trees; many pressed near to us, their hands resting on their hips, regarding us with a tense and silent absorption that made me nervous.
Hopkins nudged the Professor. “Prof., give ’em a lecture, anything, only hand it over highly flavored—paprika-like. Slam a few dictionaries at ’em. What we need just now is a little intellectual standing, I take it. These highbrows think we’re no better than we look.”
Oddly they had said nothing to us until they noticed Hopkins talking; then one of them, a rather benignant and especially reflective looking individual, who had been arguing vehemently the moment before with one of his colleagues, advanced and said what sounded like “do bau” or, had it been in such Hebrew as I myself understood, “dobare”; namely “speak,” “talk.”
The Professor probably did not understand the word, but he understood perfectly their wishes, and under Hopkins’ admonition stepped forward, and started a harangue. Nothing that had preceded was so likely to ruin our discretion as the scene made by this overture of the Professor’s. Hopkins was compelled to grovel on the ground to suppress his merriment, but this ruse was interpreted fortunately as an expression of reverence for the words or voice of our leader, and his explosions reduced by this means to a subterranean titter were further alleviatingly considered as a phase of weeping.
The Professor was a sight. Not any part of his attire was whole, and his boots were devoid of toesand rent along the soles. He was dirtier, I think, than any one of us, as his ablutions had been less regular, so far as regularity was the appropriation of an opportunity once a month, and he had been torn and bruised and scratched, and had a most despondent expression of hoodlumism. His hands alone were presentable; I have referred to his sensitiveness over his hands. And his hair! It was a bright red, and it had grown profusely, and, exulting in some untamed inclination to revert to savagery, had grown outward in a stiff jungle that now flamed around his ingratiating physiognomy like some angry halo. Under the stress of his nervousness and—his periods, he flourished his hands and shook his head, and this immensely increased the gap between his grandiloquence and his humiliating appearance. It was side splitting.
And then increasing the ludicrousness of it all almost insufferably, was the close attention of the people, and the absurdly critical demeanor and deliberation of the philosophers. Certainly nobody understood a word of what the Professor said and yet they listened with bent heads, devouring eyes, and a mute satisfaction impossible to describe. And the Professor, flattered or deceived by the thrilling effect he was producing, fired off his lingo at a greater speed, with a screaming voice (he probably thought that if he yelled he would be better understood), and more tumultuous gestures. The combination was more unutterably funny than our predicament was possibly grave. Hopkins was unable to raise his head. I heard him groaning, “Such a bizness. Choke him off.” I was compelled to hide my head in my hands and allow my convulsions to go for what they were worth as emotional signals of despair. Goritz, a grave man, lately a fiercely obsessed man, deliberately turned his back and stuck his fingers in his ears.
And this was some of the Professor’s sonorous patter:
“My friends you are amazed to see us, but we have come from the great (hands pressed together) world beyond your continent to find YOU (emphasized by two pointing index fingers). We knew you were here (an ascending shout), and we knew you lived in a world of wonders (miscellaneous flourishes of both hands over his head), and enchantments, scientific miracles (a prolongedcrescendo) of which we wish to know more. Do not feel astonished at our appearance (an inclusive sweep of the right arm); we have traveled over the polar sea, over mountain ranges, through a desert; we have crossed the steaming chasm that encircles your country (hands and arms in descriptive attitudes, and constantly moving). We have essayed the impossible (another shout), and we have accomplished it (sudden drop into a growling bass); we have,” etc., etc., etc., for at least ten minutes, with the people positively hypnotized, so it seemed, by his clamorous chatter.
The absurdity of this address was to us evident enough, and yet it was just the kind of demonstration on our part which impressed them. The Professor’s style was valorous and friendly and noisy, and the effect of his rattling appeal was propitious. There would have been real danger for us, I believe now, had they discovered how we had rifled the tree temples. That might have roused their worst hatred and made our position perilous.
Suddenly the benignant looking leader clapped his hands together, and then put one over his mouth, and the Professor wisely took the hint and subsided. There was an animated colloquy begun among the other chiefs and legislators, and we all listened intently, I especially, for it became a stronger and stronger conviction that these dignitariesspoke a strain of Hebrew, to me not at all understandable, and yet approaching my own Hebrew vocabulary, but masked or distorted by their peculiar nasality and squeakiness.
The discussion grew vehement, and the little doctors attained a degree of excitement that threw them into violent gesticulations, their heads dancing with their vigorous utterances, their beards wagging, and their arms and hands flung around in elucidations that seemed never to convince anyone. Well, the upshot of it all was that an order was given to take us in custody, which we were made to comprehend by very expressive signs, and the order was accompanied by a lot of gracious grimace, deprecatory bowing and apologetic shrugs, whose burden of significance we understood to be that an escort would take us to the conveniences we needed—a bath, renewed clothing, food, rest, shelter, etc.—while the procession would pursue its ceremonial transit, which we very well saw was a state occasion connected with their religion and involving perhaps a long journey consuming weeks for its completion. I wondered whether they would discover our thievery, and felt convinced that if they did our sojourn amongst them would be less pleasant.
After some confusion and distracting running to and fro, all of which had quite a civilized aspect from the self-importance of the little actors, and the typical uncertainty and contradiction of orders, we were finally dispatched with an escort or guard of Eskimo men, led by a chief or captain who had received from the council a budget of directions and injunctions, and who, as Hopkins put it, “had rathersoured on the job” which would deprive him of the emotional reflexes of the religious revival—surely a sort of vast national picnic.
By this time the spaces around us were jammed tight with people, the little folk and the bulkyEskimos crowding together and picturesquely intermingled; multitudes were leaping into the trees and climbing out on the branches, so that we were literally in a defile of the strangers, whose drums and cymbals were now silent, and who, passive and almost motionless, gazed at us with a fixed wonder that robbed their faces of all expression.
An incident reminded us forcefully of the strange power of the little rulers over their bulky dependents or subjects, and revived our astonishment at the contents of the metal tubes they carried. These tubes were in the possession of only the “faculty,” the big headed, diminutive and rather venerable looking persons who evidently ruled the community and whose disproportionate power probably sprang from the magical qualities of these same tubes.
A tall, morose looking Eskimo had approached us in a threatening manner after having been ordered into the group who were to take charge of us for the mission determined upon by the little chiefs. Something in the half amused inspection Spruce Hopkins made of him, or his own disappointment irritated him, and with a sudden angry cry he sprang out of the ranks, his face distorted with savage fury, and raised the pole or spear he carried to strike Hopkins, when the latter “side-stepped,” and the big stick thumped harmlessly on the ground.
Before anyone had time to intervene or calculate the creature’s next move, the amiable disputant who had taken so much interest in us nimbly jumped before the man, snatched the tube from his belt, directed it at Hopkins’ assailant, pressed its end and sent the fellow sprawling on his back in apparent agony. There was no sign of any discharge, there certainly was no sound, perhapsthere was a momentary gleam of light; we learned afterwards that there must have been. But the moaning ruffian was effectually quailed, and the hush, followed by a low quaver of satisfied subjection from everyone, indicated the supreme power of these physically impotent magicians over their muscular companions.
“If we could hand over a few of those pepper guns to the New York police the gang, thug, and crook fraternities would go out of business pretty quick. Eh?” said Hopkins. “That’s slicker than chain lightning.”
“A powerful, suddenly produced and concentrated X-ray effect,” commented the Professor.
“Goritz,” I asked, “where have you put the gold images and trophies? It will probably be best for us to keep them pretty well out of sight.”
“Yes I know,” returned Goritz. “I’ve thought of that. They’re in my pack, and that won’t get out of my hands. Don’t worry.”
The main mass moved forward. There was a scurrying to and fro, and a downpour of acrobats from the trees. Long after all were out of sight we heard the hum of the drums and dying whir of the cymbals, reaching us through the forest. Then we collided with another detachment, the commissariat, a promiscuous mixture of figures, and with them small flocks of goats. First came platform cars drawn by strong big rams, piled up with what looked like loaves of bread; these were succeeded by the rambling goats and kids leashed in fours and fives, and driven by goatherds of the little people, all wearing the universal tunic and loose trousers; then more cars heaped high with baskets or hampers, and more and more, till Hopkins exultingly declared:
“Well, we shan’t starve. I guess we’ve dropped into a highly developed culture, as you say Prof.,among a people who realize the foundation principle of enlightened living, a full and diversified bread basket.”
Just at the moment I turned and looked up the slope behind us. I caught through a straight vista, almost as if made for my view, the shifting lines of the Eskimos with the gold poles and the black serpents. Somehow the light struck them and they seemed to glitter menacingly.
“Yes! Mr. Hopkins, we have dropped down on a civilization that perhaps is the most ancient on the earth. This segregation of Adamites has developed in this strangely protected seclusion a peculiar knowledge, a knowledge, I am beginning to suspect, only dimly anticipated by the Curies, Ramsays, Rutherfords, Sollys.
“They have hit upon some of the properties of matter by which, Mr. Hopkins, one kind of matter becomes another kind, through radio-activity. The prevalence of gold amongst them may be attributable to a mother lode of which I have spoken before, but these mysterious tubes, the radium-like mass in the zinc-blende cave in the Deer Fels, this utterly inexplicable light, hints at deeper secrets. And yet, sir, with this last triumph of scientific power in their grasp they unite an elemental savage worship of snakes and trees, a vestigial trace, sir, of the very first ages. Then it is clear there is a peculiar industrial or politico-economic phase of society conducted on a division principle of fighters, workers and thinkers, a sort of analogue to the formicary and the apiary—the ant and the bees. Yes sir!”
This last word was in recognition of Hopkins’ enthusiastic denotement (with extended arms and a loud “Hurray” which gathered the Eskimo guard around us in a hurry and in some perplexity; they were relieved when some speaking signs indicatedHopkins’ appreciation of “grape juice,” pure or fermented), of the last wagons closing the food supply for the peripatetic religious carnival. These were also platform cars on the rudely rounded solid wheels, burnt and charred, of pine tree sections, but on them were huge earthenware casks like the immense vessels found in Peru, and like them ornamented with colored designs; in this case manifold variations, conventionalized and realistic of the Serpent and the Tree. Their contents were unmistakable, for a mere water supply was almost too abundantly found in the innumerable brooks, springs, and deep pools of the Pine Tree forest.
“We’re certainly approaching civilization now. As an ultimate evidence of man’s enlightenment, quantity and quality ofboozeare complete. The reign of reason and the Dominion of John Barleycorn are simultaneous.
“‘John Barleycorn was a hero boldOf noble enterprise;For if you do but taste his blood,’Twill make your courage rise.’Twill make a man forget his woes’Twill brighten all his joy’Twill make the widow’s heart to singTho the tear were in her eye.Then let us toast John Barleycorn,Each man a glass in hand;And may his great posterityNe’er fail in Krocker Land.’”
“‘John Barleycorn was a hero boldOf noble enterprise;For if you do but taste his blood,’Twill make your courage rise.’Twill make a man forget his woes’Twill brighten all his joy’Twill make the widow’s heart to singTho the tear were in her eye.Then let us toast John Barleycorn,Each man a glass in hand;And may his great posterityNe’er fail in Krocker Land.’”
“‘John Barleycorn was a hero boldOf noble enterprise;For if you do but taste his blood,’Twill make your courage rise.’Twill make a man forget his woes’Twill brighten all his joy’Twill make the widow’s heart to singTho the tear were in her eye.Then let us toast John Barleycorn,Each man a glass in hand;And may his great posterityNe’er fail in Krocker Land.’”
“‘John Barleycorn was a hero bold
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
’Twill make your courage rise.
’Twill make a man forget his woes
’Twill brighten all his joy
’Twill make the widow’s heart to sing
Tho the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in Krocker Land.’”
To let the provision annex pass as it lumbered by, while tall drivers of the Eskimo plied long whips whose lashes stung the air with rapid reports, and the straining rams tugged and bolted, we had been compelled to huddle to one side of the road. This outbreak of Hopkins and the Professor’s soliloquywere amazing to our guard at first, but as soon as they half comprehended Hopkins’ pleasure and his musical voice sang Burns’ apostrophe they became mightily amused, and they beamed on the American with unstinted confidence.
Goritz, who knew some Eskimo from his experience in Greenland, attempted to talk to them, but their answers were unintelligible; neither, I think did they understand him, and it is also certain that they did not converse among themselves in the Semitic phrase peculiar to the little men. There was very little talk of any kind amongst them or us, and after the ebullition when we ran into the wine cart, we relapsed into a resigned silence, enjoying most a study of our guard. Nothing had been taken from us, no search made of our packs, and our guns still remained apparently unnoticed in our hands. The “little doctors” as Hopkins called them had indeed looked at them curiously, and I felt certain they would on their return find out their uses as also the uses of our instruments, the aneroid, thermometers, chronometers, clinometer, artificial horizon, all of which we had regained from their hiding place below the pine tree from whose crown we had so unexpectedly descended.
On, on, on, we tramped; the trees became smaller, more distant, and an open ground appeared before us. In another instant it was succeeded by an even denser growth of younger and greener pine trees; the road turned sharply; it crossed the thick screen; another turn and, like a vision, the central valley of Krocker Land unrolled before us, an endless park, seamed by silver rivers, clothed in emerald meads, tenanted by incalculable flocks, and marbled in its lighting, by an incessant drift of clouds that threw over it a penumbral shade.
four men, standing on a hill, look down on distant a valley and hillsTHE VALLEY OF RASSELAS
THE VALLEY OF RASSELAS
THE VALLEY OF RASSELAS
That was a marvelous moment, Mr. Link. We were dumb with admiration, and we stood still,rooted to the spot, immobile in a transport of amazement. Nothing was said until the Professor half audibly murmured, “The Valley of Rasselas,” and the captain of our guard pointing to the glorious picture muttered to himself. Familiar as they were with the scene these unemotional men appreciated our astonishment, and allowed us to measure with our eyes the grand prospect. There was a wayside house near at hand, an adobe structure of red and yellow; beyond it the road dipped, suddenly passing through a hewn gateway in the cliffside which we had reached and which, with varying heights and undulating limits, enclosed like a mammoth parapet the scene of peace and loveliness before us.
To this house we repaired. It was evidently located there as a proscenium box for the contemplation of the ravishing picture. On its porch, most fitly placed, we sat on low benches and attempted to record the details of the view, by our eyes hardly recorded before, so lost had they been in the enveloping, slumbering beauty. The cordiality of our hosts was perfect; we munched spicedtortillasand drank from absurd spherical mugs a pleasant, ruby colored wine, a sort ofTokay. And this, sir, is what we saw.
It was a flat land over which wandered three separate rivers, fed by the spouting falls that rushed over the cliffside from many points, the gathered waters of all that tracery of streams in the pine forest. Between these rivers spread vast meadows or fields, thickly patched by motionless—so they seemed—herds of sheep and goats. Braiding lines or hedges of trees and shrubs parceled the green plains into checkers and, as the eye passed outward, these hedges, massing themselves in perspective, banked the horizon with a continuous wood. And there was a floating colorfulness in thepicture besides, a roseate-blueness, that we later discovered came from an abundant wild flower like our iris which nestled over acres of land in the wetter spots. And far, far away with a spectral splendor rose into heaven shafts, or one monstrous shaft, of light. It glowed and pulsated, changing from an opalescent pearliness to the hardened glint of steel, anon streaked with bluish ribbons like a spectrum. Nothing could be more wonderful.
Playing against it rose what seemed a volley from steaming cauldrons, folded, unfolded, and drifting. Following this magnificent radiation into the sky it was lost in a wide halo or pond or lake of strangely scintillating light; an overspread roof of light it seemed, forming that stationary sun, that from end to end, from side to side of this polar bowl lit its manifold circumferential areas. Thither our fascinated eyes rose, and then it became manifest that the overflowing permeating glory of this scene resided in the play of this light, apparently forever veiled by nets and skeins and shifting aureoles of clouds, that somehow formed a floor beneath it, so that its emergent rays, as in our sunsets or sun risings, shot outward, coronal-like, and as they encountered the perpetual play of clouds and vapors as perpetually painted them in colors. A superb and marvelous meteorology, for this Valley of Rasselas thus remained, for long periods perhaps, bathed in the beauty of a royal sunrise or a royal sunset.
This screening from the downpour of the light of the stationary sun was certainly a beneficent provision, for while there might elapse periods when its unchecked blaze smote the valley, the harsh ordeal of enduring it was constantly intermitted. It was clear too that the rainfall was excessive, both here and in the pine forest we had traversed; that this navel of the world was a watery kingdom.
Even as we gazed the pageant of the sky mysteriously changed, and with its changes the complexion of the picture earthward underwent delicate transmutations too. From gay to sombre, from a wide refulgence to a twilight grayness, from a flecked radiance to the transient darkness of clotted clouds, from a burning splendor of illumination, by which things lost their definition, and the dazzling excess of light blotted out details, to half light, whereby a clearness of outlines developed, allowing us to measure the distance, and to pick out house and tree, bush, stream and rolling mead. We were enraptured by reason of this protean aspect, and watched and, still lingering, gazed, unsatisfied.
The Eskimo men understood our delight and it brought on their rather apathetic faces a smiling approval. They chattered and gesticulated and surrendered themselves to a renewed appreciation of this age-old cradle, in which they had grown and lived, strangely associated with the older race, perhaps of some Semitic stock, strangely altered from their rude forebears and separated more strangely still with their associates from the thronging world of men outside of this entrancing cell of earth, and yet bearing the impress of traditions which that outer world had created. How could it be explained? Here was the new and crowning marvel of the centuries—Krocker Land!
A floating tree trunk had indicated to Columbus the vast unknown of the western continent and the scattered prognostications of geographers had led his scientific thought steadily forward to its prediction and—it was found. A mountain’s darkness brushing the horizon had crossed his vision as Admiral Peary looked westward through his glass, and betokened yet untrod tracts of earth; the vagaries of the tides submitted to scientific computation had proven to Harris their positive existence,and now to us, four froward, unknown men, it was vouchsafed to establish in facts these symptomatic guesses.
But our discovery was enriched by unsuspected marvels; this immense polar depression, like a dent in the crust of the earth, the peculiar succession of dropping zones, their physiographic contrasts, the stupendous circular—so we supposed—rift which framed them, its igneous depths, that incessant up-pouring of steam devising a curtain of cloud around this screened continent, the perpetual chain of changes in the precipitation of the condensed vapors renewed again by evaporation, the survival of saurian life, the meteorological perplexities introduced, the bewildering fact of an ethnic evolution in these small people, their peculiar association with a dependent Eskimo race, the suggestion of Adamic traces, the apparent control over advanced chemical agencies, this indigenous tree and serpent worship hinting at ancestral influences lost in the shadows of the very beginning, and then, more incredible than the wildest dreams of fiction, this impossible stationary sun, sustaining this little segregated world, feeding it with light and heat, an unimaginable oasis in the incalculable desert of Arctic snows and ice. WHAT WAS IT? Upon what miracle of matter were we advancing?
I was lost in such reflexions when an exclamation from the Eskimo—sounding likeibbley—and a hand clapped on my shoulder straightened me into attention. The pool of clouds over the valley whose inconstant movement alternately veiled and revealed the light beyond them, had parted, as though a sudden wind had pierced it and driven its parts in rapid and eccentric flight to all sides, as a stone dropped in a pond sends the waves shoreward, and, past the rift, we saw through the rising vapors, beyond the rigid, fan shaped prism yet involved init, an incandescent surface like a mammoth shield, a shield covering acres of space, and over it again, and yet perhaps miles and miles further away, the solemn grandeur of an ice capped lofty mountain.
It was a glimpse only; an instant later the refluent clouds had flung themselves together again, in the ceaseless to and fro, and, as I thought, rotary motion, that conveyed such a changeable expression to that peaceful hidden vale.
That glimpse, Mr. Link, is the memory of a lifetime, it was a picture so inwrought with the occasion and my own feelings as to remain with me a deathless vision.
“I suppose this extraordinarypseudo-sun,” said the Professor after some moments’ silence “is the most astounding thing we have seen. It is certainly unaccountable. Its power to illuminate, warm and enliven this little continent within the circle of the Perpetual Nimbus surpasses comprehension. On what theory of physics—for of course it is not an extra-terrestrial phenomenon—can it be accounted for?”
“How about this Radium. There’s light and heat in that isn’t there?” asked Hopkins.
“Of course, as we know it in its bromide salt. But the radium couldn’t be a fixed object in the sky, and, if on the earth, what fixes its rays or converges them on one spot, and what is the radiant material of that spot itself?”
“I have been thinking,” said Goritz, standing up, while our Eskimo escort gathered around us, and listened with a gravity that half persuaded me they understood us, “I have been thinking that there is a vortex of dust up there in that nebulous mass, that heat and light reach it from some terrestrial source and are again reflected earthward. Would that meet the problem?”
“Perhaps,” assented the Professor, and even ashe spoke the light everywhere about us diminished, so that the valley became hidden in a most dismal half light, and then that feeble illumination vanished, and we were literally plunged in darkness. Waning of the light, amounting sometimes almost to extinction, and lasting for some hours, had been constantly observed by us on our journey from the coast, but nothing so complete as this. We were pretty well astonished, and remained silent, expecting some novel demonstration, for now we had become so convinced of our immersion in a sea of Sinbad-like adventure, that we were not only prepared but almost impatient for still newer and newer and stranger happenings.
The Eskimos were as silent as ourselves, but when in perhaps half an hour the light revealed itself again in the sky, as spluttering radiations, somewhat like the splattering of sparks about a slowly reconstructed arc light, and then became continuous, and then gradually swelled to its original intensity, and the valley once more glowed under our eyes, they began singing. It seemed to be some hymn or religious chant and we connected it at once with superstitious feeling over the removal and renewal of the light.
It was a wearisome iterative sing-song drone, rising and falling in pitch, and sometimes deriving a rhythmical accent from the clapping of their hands. The voices were not unmusical, and there was enough vocality in the words to even elicit an approach to charm. When later we heard this same song sung by thousands, its reinforced effectiveness produced a positive spell.
It was time to proceed; our guard evidently thought so. The captain shook us each by the arm, pointed down the road, and we tramped away, watched eagerly by the few inmates of this roadside house—a man, his wife, and three rabbit-eyed,almost naked kids. The road passed through a gateway of stone, hewn in the cliffs, and with a moderate grade conducted us some ten hundred feet in vertical descent, into the Valley of Rasselas.
It was the last step on our long journey, the goal of dreams had been reached, Krocker Land was discovered, and now the revelation was to be crowned by a closing and incalculable drama.