rock-born streams and rivulets, of forest and hill and dale, sparsely
inhabited, with the sea to the eastward of it, unseen, and the
mountains everywhere visible always, and endlessly changing in
aspect.

Herdsmen and shepherds wandered over it, and along its almost disused
roads pedlars and pack mules passed at times but rarely. Minerals and
marbles were under its turf, but none sought for them; pools and
lakes slept in it, undisturbed save by millions of water fowl and
their pursuers. The ruins of temples and palaces were overgrown by
its wild berries and wild flowers. The buffalo browsed where emperors
had feasted, and the bittern winged its slow flight over the fields
of forgotten battles.

It was the season when the flocks are brought through this lonely
land, coming from the plains to the hills. Many of them passed on
their way thus along the course of the Edera water. The shepherds,
clothed in goatskin, with the hair worn outward, bearded, brown,
hirsute men, looking like savage satyrs, the flocks they drove before
them travel-worn, lame, heart-broken, the lambs and kids bleating
painfully. They cannot keep up with the pace of the flock, and, when
they fall behind, the shepherds slit their throats, roast their
bodies over an evening fire, or bake them under its ashes, and eat
them; if a town or village be near, the little corpses are sold in
it. Often a sheep dog or a puppy drops down in the same way, footsore
and worn out; then the shepherds do not tarry, but leave the
creatures to their fate, to die slowly of thirst and hunger.

The good shepherd is a false phrase. No one is more brutal than a
shepherd. If he were not so he could not bear his life for a day.