emary, and caused every head of stately
maize to quiver with delight at the warmth of his kiss.

The plain stretched its limitless expanse as far as human eye can
reach--a sea of tall straight stems, with waves of brilliant green and
plume-crowned crests shimmering like foam in the sunlight.

As far as human eye can see!--and further, much further still!--the sea
of maize, countless upright stems, hundreds of thousands of emerald
green sheaths crowned with flaxen tendrils like a maiden's hair; down on
the ground--a carpet for the feet of the majestic corn--hundreds and
thousands of orange-coloured pumpkins turning their huge shiny carcases
to the ripening rays of the sun, and all around in fantastic lines,
rows of tall sunflowers, a blaze of amber, with thick velvety hearts
laden with seed.

And all of it stretching out apparently to infinity beyond that horizon
line which is still hidden by a silvery haze, impalpable womb that
cradles the life-giving heat.

Stately stems of maize--countless as the pebbles on a beach, as the
specks of foam upon the crest of a wave, limitless as the sea and like
the sea mutable, ever-changing, restless--bending to every breath of the
summer breeze, full of strange, sweet sounds, of moanings and of sighs,
as the emerald sheaths tremble in the wind, or down below the bright
yellow carcases of the pumpkins crack and shiver in the growing heat.

An ocean of tall maize and gaily-coloured pumpkins as far as the eye can
reach, and long, dividing lines of amber-coloured sunflowers, vivid and
riotous, flaunting their crude colouring in the glowing sunlight.

Here and there the dull, dark green of hemp breaks the unvarying
stretches of maize, and far away there is a tanya (cottage) with a group
of stunted acacias near it, and a well whose tall, gaunt arm stretches
weirdly up to the sky, whilst to the south the sluggish Maros winds its
slow course lazily toward the parent stream.

An ocean of maize and of pumpkins and of sunflowers, with here and there
the tall, crested stems of hemp, and above it the sky--blue and already
glowing through the filmy mist which every minute grows more ethereal
and more impalpable as veil upon veil of heat-holding vapours are drawn
from before its face.

A beautiful morning in mid-September, and yet in all this vast immensity
of fertile land and ripening fruit there is no sign of human toil, no
sound of beast or creaking waggon, no sign of human life around th