I recalled at once and distinctly the hot summer morning ten years back,
when we had prepared that passage of the Eighteenth Book together in our
study at Clifton; I at the table, Harry lolling in the cane-seated
armchair with the Liddell and Scott open on his knees; outside, the
sunny close and the fresh green of the lime-trees.

Now that I looked more attentively the bare down, on which we climbed
like flies, did indeed resemble a vast round shield, about the rim of
which this unseen water echoed. And the resemblance grew more startling
when, a mile or so farther on our way, as the grey dawn overtook us,
Harry pointed upwards and ahead to a small boss or excrescence now
lifting itself above the long curve of the horizon.

At first I took it for a hummock or tumulus. Then, as the day whitened
about us, I saw it to be a building--a tall, circular barrack not unlike
the Colosseum. A question shaped itself on my lips, but something in
Harry's manner forbade it. His gaze was bent steadily forward, and I
kept my wonder to myself, and also the oppression of spirit which had
now grown to something like physical torture.

When first the great barrack broke into sight we must have been at least
two miles distant. I kept my eyes fastened on it as we approached, and
little by little made out the details of its architecture. From base to
summit--which appeared to be roofless--six courses of many hundred
arches ran around the building, one above the other; and between each
pair a course, as it seemed, of plain worked stone, though I afterwards
found it to be sculptured in low relief. The arches were cut in deep
relief and backed with undressed stone. The lowest course of all,
however, was quite plain, having neither arches nor frieze; but at
intervals corresponding to the eight major points of the compass--so far