dust from the threshing-floors filled the air with a golden
mist, half hiding the huge temple of Astarte with its four
hundred pillars.

At Baghistan, among the rich gardens watered by fountains
from the rock, he looked up at the mountain thrusting its
immense rugged brow out over the road, and saw the figure of
King Darius trampling upon his fallen foes, and the proud list
of his wars and conquests graven high upon the face of the
eternal cliff.

Over many a cold and desolate pass, crawling painfully
across the wind-swept shoulders of the hills; down many a
black mountain-gorge, where the river roared and raced before
him like a savage guide; across many a smiling vale, with
terraces of yellow limestone full of vines and fruit-trees;
through the oak-groves of Carine and the dark Gates of Zagros,
walled in by precipices; into the ancient city of Chala, where
the people of Samaria had been kept in captivity long ago; and
out again by the mighty portal, riven through the encircling
hills, where he saw the image of the High Priest of the Magi
sculptured on the wall of rock, with hand uplifted as if to bless
the centuries of pilgrims; past the entrance of the narrow
defile, filled from end to end with orchards of peaches and figs,
through which the river Gyndes foamed down to meet him; over
the broad rice-fields, where the autumnal vapours spread their
deathly mists; following along the course of the river, under
tremulous shadows of poplar and tamarind, among the lower
hills; and out upon the flat plain, where the road ran
straight as an arrow through the stubble-fields and parched