“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.”

Billali—­who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of the day before—­nodded his head sagely as he replied—­

“Thou art right, my son.  It is a channel cut out by those who were before us in this place to carry away water.  Of this I am sure:  within the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a great lake.  But those who were before us, by wonderful arts of which I know naught, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of the mountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake.  But first they cut the channel that thou seest across the plain.  Then, when at last the water burst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive it, and crossed this plain till it reached the low land behind the rise, and there, perchance, it made the swamp through which we have come.  Then when the lake was drained dry, the people whereof I speak built a mighty city on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name of Kor yet remaineth, and from age to age hewed the caves and passages that thou wilt see.”

“It may be,” I answered; “but if so, how is it that the lake does not fill up again with the rains and the water of the springs?”

“Nay, my son, the people were a wise people, and they left a drain to keep it clear.  Seest thou the river to the right?” and he pointed to a fair-sized stream that wound away across the plain, some four miles from us.  “That is the drain, and it comes out through the mountain wall where this cutting goes in.  At first, perhaps, the water ran down this canal, but afterwards the people turned it, and used the cutting for a road.”

“And is there then no other place where one may enter into the great mountain,” I asked, “except through that drain?”

“There is a place,” he answered, “where cattle and men on foot may cross with much labour, but it is secret.  A year mightest thou search and shouldst never find it.  It is only used once a year, when the herds of cattle that have been fatting on the slopes of the mountain, and on this plain, are driven into the space within.”

“And does She live there always?” I asked, “or does she come at times without the mountain?”

“Nay, my son, where she is, there she is.”

By now we were well on to the great plain, and I was examining with delight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and trees, the latter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of three or four, much of the timber being of large size, and belonging apparently to a variety of evergreen oak.  There were also many palms, some of them more than one hundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns that I ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled