they stared hard, their interest was chiefly in hearing how, when, and
where I had been found, whether I bit or kicked, or had any other vices,
and if I possessed any commercial value.

My guide's throat must have ached with the repetition of the narrative,
but as he made the story redound greatly to his own glory, he put
up cheerfully with the hoarseness. In this way, walking and talking
alternately, we travelled during daylight through a country which slowly
lost its rugged features and became more and more inhabited, the hardy
people living in scattered villages in contradiction to the debased
city-loving Hither folk.

About nightfall we came to a sea-fishers' hamlet, where, after the
old man had explained my exalted nature and venerable antiquity, I was
offered shelter for the night.

My host was the headman, and I must say his bearing towards the
supernatural was most unaffected. If it had been an Avenue hotel I could
not have found more handsome treatment than in that reed-thatched hut.
They made me wash and rest, and then were all agog for my history; but
that I postponed, contenting myself with telling them I had been lately in
Seth, and had come thence to see them via the ice valley--to all of which
they listened with the simplicity of children. Afterwards I turned on
them, and openly marvelled that so small a geographical distance as there
was between that land and this could make so vast a human difference.
"The truth, O dweller in blue shadows of primordial ice, is," said the
most intelligent of the Thither folk as we sat over fried deer-steak
in his hut that evening, "we who are MEN, not Peri-zad, not overstayed
fairies like those you have been amongst, are newcomers here on this
shore. We came but a few generations ago from where the gold curtains