underworld, and urged an immediate return. Without much difficulty we
got back to the marketplace and from hence the youngster knew the way
well enough. Thus, after a sojourn of more than an hour and a half in
this labyrinth, I again greeted the light of day." [Footnote:
_Reisebericht in Hauran_, ii., pp. 47-48.]

I have quoted this somewhat lengthy account because, as we shall see in
the sequel, the subterranean dwellings and above all refuges in Europe,
bear to this town of King Og of Bashan a marked resemblance.

Within four hours of Paris by Chartres and Sarge is the town of
Montoire with a clean inn, Le Cheval Rouge, and next station down the
Loir is Troo. The Loir, male, is the river, not La Loire of the
feminine gender. Le Loir is a river that rises in the north-east,
traverses the fertile upland plain of Beauce, and falls into and is
lost in La Loire at Angers. It is a river rarely visited by English
tourists, but it does not deserve to be overlooked. It has cut for
itself a furrow in the chalk tufa, and the hospitable cliffs on each
side offer a home to any vagrant who cares to scratch for himself a
hole in the friable face, wherein to shelter his head.

Troo bears a certain resemblance to the city of Og. Originally it was
all underground, but in process of time it effervesced, bubbled out of
its holes, and is now but half troglodyte. The heights that form the
Northern declivity of the valley of the Loir come to an abrupt end
here, and have been sawn through by a small stream creating a natural
fosse, isolating the hill of Troo that is attached to the plateau only
on the North. The hill rises steeply from the river to a crest occupied
by a Romanesque church recently scoured to the whiteness of flour, and
beside it is a mighty tumulus, planted with trees.