II

In the Book of the Voyage without a Harbour is written the
record of the ten years which passed before I came back again
to the city of Saloma.

It was not easy to find, for I came down through the
mountains, and as I looked from a distant shoulder of the
hills for the little bay full of greenery, it was not to be
seen. There was only a white town shining far off against the
brown cliffs, like a flake of mica in a cleft of the rocks.
Then I slept that night, full of care, on the hillside, and
rising before dawn, came down in the early morning toward the
city.

The fields were lying parched and yellow under the
sunrise, and great cracks gaped in the earth as if it were
thirsty. The trenches and channels were still there, but
there was little water in them; and through the ragged fringes of
the rusty vineyards I heard, instead of the cheerful songs of the
vintagers, the creaking of dry windlasses and the hoarse throb of
the pumps in sunken wells. The girdle of gardens had shrunk like
a wreath of withered flowers, and all the bright embroidery, of
earth was faded to a sullen gray.

At the foot of an ancient, leafless olive-tree I saw a
group of people kneeling around a newly opened well. I asked
a man who was digging beside the dusty path what this might
mean. He straightened himself for a moment, wiping the sweat
from his brow, and answered, sullenly, "They are worshipping