the new and fresh, and of the forgetting of the troubles of the past.
This was true in my case, at least, for I was soon carefree once more,
secure in my freedom. As the wind rushed across my body, I was relaxed
in my adopted element, air, though it was slightly difficult to keep
myself firmly on the glider, as I was lying unfastened to the tabletop.
Below me passed the ocean, looking generally the same as ever, though
paler and less alive, like a ghost of its former self, but still close
enough to bring the calm of reminiscing.

Soon even the ocean began to give way to the fast approaching mainland,
and I abandoned my restive meditations to solve the problem of how to
land. I had not made any contraptions for that purpose, having not
thought about it in the hurry to leave my prison. I decided to use a
traditional circling approach, in the same way scavenging birds descend
on their prey. When I was a mile or so inland, I began to circle about
in wide spirals, narrowing them as I drew closer to the ground. In this
way I had slowed down enough by the time I made contact with the ground
that neither I nor my craft was injured in the landing.

The terrain proved to be as desolate as it had appeared from the
distance, for the main vegetation was a weakly sprouting grass that was
only a few inches high, though not mowed or chewed down. Every few dozen
yards there was a single stunted shrub or small tree, or in some cases a
group of the same, and the spaces between these was littered with
scattered rocks and occasionally a smaller, flowering plant. The
topography of the land was mostly flat, though not in the sense of a
plain or savanna, instead it was merely a gentle slope, so that the
immediate area seemed flat, but in the distance it was seen to rise
considerably. There were also a few small hills that were no more than
twenty feet high across their whole length, but in the obtuse slopes of