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stony acclivities, quite bare of vegetation, and beauti-fied by nothing but the sunlight. Then we issued on a high irregular table-land, with rich-looking red soil, dotted with dark-green caroub trees, tufted with myrtle, and sparkling with limestone fragments. Beyond this rose a range of limestone ridges, broken, as we presently found, into a multitude of crooked gorges, and through these we began slowly to take our intricate way. Bock-strewn streams ran by us, and on every side from fissure or silvery ledge young pines were sprouting, and here and there was a cypress. The small noise of the waters came sharp and clear to our ears, and brought home to us the deep silence of the wilderness, which once or twice was made even more profound by a far-off tinkle from the bell of some clambering goat. All this while we were working our way upwards, and the air each moment grew rarer and more excit-ing. Little puffs of wind came cool and fresh on our cheeks, and scents like thyme and myrtle were breathing on every side of us. In due time the summit of this range was arrived at. Before us was a shallow descent, beyond it a rising slope, and above this, like a castle, the summit of Pentedac-tylon. It was a singular object. Its sides seemed to be absolutely precipitous, and its five peaks, on a nearer view of them, still retained their likeness to five distended fingers. Here we halted and scruti-nised the slopes to right and left of it. We sought everywhere for the signs which my friend had men- 90 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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