The Throne of Solomon

with patterns burnt into it, fish, camel, ibex, and geometric;
designs among them, all done in delicate primitive lines. Tt
pipe was about two feet long, with four stops close together an
one separate. The piper sat playing the folding tune for sheej:
which the animals know and, hearing it, will gather from th
hill-side of their own accord: and as I listened, I thought of th
Italian mountains in my childhood, when an old man woul
walk through the village every morning with a horn; and as h
blew on his instrument, all the goats stepped out from the lov
doorways of their stables and followed him. We sat a lonj
time over the music, the squire joining now and then with sac
monotonous tones, while I discovered an unsuspected talen
and sang German songs remembered from the nursery.

The whole of next day was swathed in mist, and spent ova
maps in the squire's drawing-room, where I also slept witt
the family, six in the same room, but luckily with the dooi
open. It was a good room, with niches all round in the usual
fashion, but a touch of originality was added by a narrow
channel filled with running water, built round the base of the
wall for bugs to drop into and get drowned: not many seemed
to get across, for they are not among the most adventurous
insects and have none of the elan of the common flea.

The Pass of Siolis into Talagkan
On the third day a gleam of sunlight suddenly revealed an
unsuspected hillside opposite, and we started off immediately,
for we were anxious now to reach the Talaghan valley, our
last bit of exploring on the way home.
The mist still hung on our flanks like Cossacks round a
retreating army: out of its softness, as we rode up along the
banks of the Halis stream which waters Bijeno, came a sound
of drums. It was a column of pilgrims, some fifty souls, as it
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