mulberries which fatten the sleek bears in their season fattened
the children too. I compared their lot with that of the toilers
in our cities and knew which I would choose. We rode by
shimmering fields of barley, with red poppies floating in the
clear transparent green as in deep sea water, through fields of
millet like the sky fallen on the earth, so innocently blue were
its blossoms, and the trees above us were trellised with the
wild roses, golden and crimson, and the ways tapestried with the
scented stars of the large white jasmine.

It was strange that later much of what she said, escaped me. Some
I noted down at the time, but there were hints, shadows of
lovelier things beyond that eluded all but the fringes of memory
when I tried to piece them together and make a coherence of a
living wonder. For that reason, the best things cannot be told in
this history. It is only the cruder, grosser matters that words
will hold. The half-touchings -vanishing looks, breaths - O God,
I know them, but cannot tell.

In the smaller villages, the head man came often to greet us and
make us welcome, bearing on a flat dish a little offering of
cakes and fruit, the produce of the place. One evening a man so
approached, stately in white robes and turban, attended by a
little lad who carried the patriarchal gift beside him. Our tents
were pitched under a glorious walnut tree with a run- ning stream
at our feet.

Vanna of course, was the interpreter, and I called her from her
tent as the man stood salaaming before me. It was strange that
when she came, dressed in white, he stopped in his salutation,