it quite clear that even within historic times one of those sacrificed was a princess.  It is surely clear that he will be considerably impressed by this confirmation, not of the part he did believe, but actually of the part he did not believe.  He has not found what he expected but he has found what he wanted, and much more than he wanted.  He has not found a single detail directly in support of St. George.  But he had found a very considerable support of St. George and the Dragon.

It is needless to inform the reader, I trust, that I do not think this particular case in the least likely; or that I am only using it for the sake of lucidity.  Even as it stands, it would not necessarily make a man believe the traditional story, but it would make him guess that it was some sort of tradition of some sort of truth; that there was something in it, and much more in it than even he himself had imagined.  And the point of it would be precisely that his reason had not anticipated the extent of his revelation.  He has proved the improbable, not the probable thing.  Reason had already taught him the reasonable part; but facts had taught him the fantastic part.  He will certainly conclude that the whole story is very much more valid than anybody has supposed.  Now as I have already said, it is not in the least likely that this will happen touching this particular tale of Palestine.  But this is precisely what really has happened touching the most sacred and tremendous of all the tales of Palestine.  This is precisely what has happened touching that central figure, round which the monster and the champion are alike only ornamental symbols; and by the right of whose tragedy even St. George’s Cross does not belong to St. George.  It is not likely to be true of the desert duel between George and the Dragon; but it is already true of the desert duel between Jesus and the Devil.  St. George is but a servant and the Dragon is but a symbol, but it is precisely about the central reality, the mystery of Christ and His mastery of the powers of darkness, that this very paradox has proved itself a fact.

Going down from Jerusalem to Jericho I was more than once moved by a flippant and possibly profane memory of the swine that rushed down a steep place into the sea.  I do not insist on the personal parallel; for whatever my points of resemblance to a pig I am not a flying pig, a pig with wings of speed and precipitancy; and if I am possessed of a devil, it is not the blue devil of suicide.  But the phrase came back into my mind because going down to the Dead Sea does really involve rushing down a steep place.  Indeed it gives a strange impression that the whole of Palestine is one single steep place.  It is as if all other countries lay flat under the sky, but this one country had been tilted sideways.  This gigantic gesture of geography or geology, this sweep as of a universal landslide, is the sort of thing that is never conveyed by any maps or books or even pictures.  All the