fifty square miles of ground. Anything more grand and imposing than
the sight presented by this great natural castle, starting in solitary
grandeur from the level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I never
shall. Its very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffs
seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed, generally speaking, they were clothed in
clouds that lay in fleecy masses upon their broad and level battlements.

I sat up in my hammock and gazed out across the plain at this thrilling
and majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed it, for he
brought his litter alongside.

"Behold the house of '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_!'" he said. "Had ever a
queen such a throne before?"

"It is wonderful, my father," I answered. "But how do we enter. Those
cliffs look hard to climb."

"Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What thinkest
thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me."

I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running
straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered with
turf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here and there,
but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of which I did not
understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody should embank a roadway.

"Well, my father," I answered, "I suppose that it is a road, otherwise
I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed of a river, or
rather," I added, observing the extraordinary directness of the cutting,
"of a canal."