This command, by the way, at once produced in me an intense desire for prolonged conversation.  It was not to be gratified, however, for at that moment she stood up again facing the tripod and me, and began to sing in a rich and thrilling voice.  What she sang I do not know for I could not understand the language, but I presume it was some ancient chant that she learned in Kendah Land.  At any rate, there she stood, a lovely and inspired priestess clad in her sacerdotal robes, and sang, waving her arms and fixing her eyes upon mine.  Presently she bent down, took a little of the Taduki weed and with words of incantation, dropped it upon the embers in the bowl.  Twice she did this, then sat herself upon the couch and waited.

A clear flame sprang up and burned for thirty seconds or so, I suppose while it consumed the volatile oils in the weed.  Then it died down and smoke began to come, white, rich and billowy, with a very pleasant odour resembling that of hot-house flowers.  It spread out between us like a fan, and though its veil I heard her say,

“The gates are wide.  Enter!”

I knew what she meant well enough, and though for a moment I thought of cheating, there is no other word for it, knew also that she had detected the thought and was scorning me in her mind.  At any rate I felt that I must obey and thrust my head forward into the smoke, as a green ham is thrust into a chimney.  The warm vapour struck against my face like fog, or rather steam, but without causing me to choke or my eyes to smart.  I drew it down my throat with a deep inhalation—­once, twice, thrice, then as my brain began to swim, threw myself back as I had been instructed to do.  A deep and happy drowsiness stole over me, and the last thing I remember was hearing the clock strike the first two strokes of the hour of ten.  The third stroke I heard also, but it sounded like to that of the richest-throated bell that ever boomed in all the world.  I remember becoming aware that it was the signal for the rolling up of some vast proscenium, revealing behind it a stage that was the world—­nothing less.

What did I see?  What did I see?  Let me try to recall and record.

First of all something chaotic.  Great rushes of vapour driven by mighty winds; great seas, for the most part calm.  Then upheavals and volcanoes spouting fire.  Then tropic scenes of infinite luxuriance.  Terrific reptiles feeding on the brinks of marshes, and huge elephant-like animals moving between palms beyond.  Then, in a glade, rough huts and about them a jabbering crowd of creatures that were only half human, for sometimes they stood upright and sometimes ran on their hands and feet.  Also they were almost covered with hair which was all they had in the way of clothes, and at the moment that I met them, were terribly frightened by the appearance of a huge mammoth, if that is the right name for it, which walked into the glade and looked at us.  At any rate it was a beast of the elephant tribe which I judged to be nearly twenty feet high, with enormous curving tusks.