meadows gay with crocusses, hyacinths, and tulips, or such-like flowers;
isolated rocks and boulders mantled with vivid moss and lichens; hot
springs falling over basins and terraces of tinted alabaster; clustering
palms and groups of spiry pine-trees; geysers throwing up columns of
spray tinged with rainbows; all these and a thousand other features of
the landscape which must be nameless passed before our view.

Again and again we startled some herd of wild quadrupeds or flock of
gaudy birds unknown to science. Legions of large and burnished insects,
veritable living jewels, might be seen everywhere, and flaunting
butterflies hovered about the car. So far we had not observed the least
sign of human occupation, and yet, as Gazen remarked, the appearance of
the country seemed to betray the influence of art. It had not the wild
and wasteful luxuriance of the earlier tract, of a region left entirely
in the hands of Nature, but rather of a paradise which had been dressed
and kept by the gods.

Owing to the height at which we were travelling, and the undulating
character of the surface, we could not see very far ahead. At length,
however, on emerging from a gap in a range of hills, we came upon a vast
plain or prairie stretching away into the distance, and there in the
blue haze of the horizon we saw, or fancied we saw, the architecture and
gardens of a great city, on the borders of a lake, and above the lake,
suspended in mid-air, a spectral palace, glittering in the sunbeams.

We raised a shout of joy and triumph at this discovery.

"Stop a minute, though," said Gazen, and a shade of doubt passed over
his face. "Perhaps it is only a mirage."