were swamps overgrown with bamboos and giant grasses, twelve feet
high. The sea was grey and calm. Lying on the sand, one saw the
reflection, or the refracted images, of the grey stones at the bottom
of the sea for twenty yards out and more. The sea had no power, it
splashed in weak and hopeless waves, sucked itself away inward, came
back again with a little run, and feebly toppled over. The high-water
line was shown by a serpentine strip of jetsam winding along the whole
of the shore. There was no yellow in the sands; clouds and sunshine
struggled overhead, but beneath them all was grey. The wind rustled in
the giant grasses like the sound of men on horseback, so that I was
continually looking behind in apprehension.

A land that is lonelier than ruin,
A sea that is stranger than death.

At a lonely house, half-way to the monastery, I thought to obtain
bread, but as I approached it twelve large brown mastiffs rushed out
and assailed me. I was in a pitiable plight, warding them off with my
stick, and did not escape without bites. I called for help, and some
one then whistled from a window and called the dogs back. I don't
fear dogs, but these were powerful animals, and withal a tremendous
surprise. I must have had a bad time had no one called them away.

I came to the river Bzib, deep and fast-running, and rowed myself
across in a leaky and muddy boat. I ploughed my way through deep
sand, or stepped from boulder to boulder, or crushed through miles of
sea-holly and prickly shrub. I came to the sacred wood in which the
Ahkbasians used to pray when they were pagans, but in which, since
their conversion, they have chiefly committed murder. I passed through
three strange woods, the first of juniper and wild pear; the second,