they had followed the quiet stream of the Choaspes, and,
looking across it, had watched how the fortress seemed to come forward
and overhang the river, while the mound of the palace fell away to the
background. The city itself was, of course, completely hidden from their
view by the steep mounds, that looked as inaccessible as though they had
been built of solid masonry.

Everything in the plain was green. Stade upon stade, and farsang upon
farsang, the ploughed furrows stretched away to the west and south; the
corn standing already green and high, and the fig-trees putting out
their broad green leaves. Here and there in the level expanse of
country the rays of the declining sun were reflected from the
whitewashed walls of a farmhouse; or in the farther distance lingered
upon the burnt-brick buildings of an outlying village. Beyond the river,
in the broad meadow beneath the turret-clad mound, half-naked, sunburnt
boys drove home the small humped cows to the milking, scaring away, as
they went, the troops of white horses that pastured in the same field,
clapping their hands and crying out at the little black foals that ran
and frisked by the side of their white dams. Here and there a
broad-shouldered, bearded fisherman angled in the stream, or flung out a
brown casting-net upon the placid waters, drawing it slowly back to the
bank, with eyes intent upon the moving cords.

The caravan halted on the turf by the side of the dusty road; the
mounted guards, threescore stalwart riders from the Median plains, fell
back to make room for the travellers, and, springing to the ground, set
about picketing and watering their horses--their brazen armour and
scarlet and blue mantles blazing in a mass of rich colour in the evening
sun; while their wild white horses, untired by the day's march, plunged
and snorted, and shook themselves, and bit each other in play by mane
and tail, in the delight of being at least half free.

Zoroaster himself--his purple mantle somewhat whitened with the dust,
and his fair face a little browned by the three weeks' journey--threw
the bridle of his horse to a soldier and ran quickly forward. A
magnificent litter, closed all around with a gilded lattice, and roofed
with three awnings of white linen, one upon the other, as a protection
against the sun, was being carefully unyoked from the mules that had
borne it. Tall Ethiopian slaves lifted it, and carried it to the
greenest spot of the turf by the softly