with all the glory
of the interior world.

Birds, gorgeous as humming-birds, resplendent in burnished hues of
purple, garnet, and green, would flash amid the flowers, or chase each
other over the water. As for ourselves, we no longer feared our own
holiest emotions. Our deepest feelings were then in the foreground.
The mysterious carmine on the palpitating lips of Lyone was the symbol
of a warm, delicate, superexcited soul.

Lyone grew day by day more and more beautiful. She resembled the color
of a deep and mysterious gold. I crowned her brow with flowers and
wreathed her azure hair with wistful daffodils.

Another day we rode on soul-created horses to discover the odoriferous
retreats of the island. The pathways wound through flowery ravines,
that looked out upon the sea. The sweet cool air that filled the
splendid gloom of the palm woods seemed the essence of gladness. What
glorious vistas opened amid the luminous green of the forest! The
murmur of music filled the infinite ways of the island as our
cavalcade wound round its peerless hills or plunged into its abysses
of flowers. The spell of an ideal land was upon us, and we experienced
sensations hitherto unfelt in life.

"This," said Lyone, "is the ideal climate. Everything has become
transfigured; even the light of the sun is softer and more blessed."

"And the goddess of Atvatabar," I replied, "has become more delicate,
more supernatural, and more holy."

The island was one vast garden of tropical fruits and flowers, without
the malaria of decay. Everywhere nature, carefully assisted by art,
assumed the rarest beauty. Everything that savored of ruin and decay
was non-existent. There were no wild or poisonous animals. No deadly
serpent was coiled upon the branches, nor did poisonous insects crawl
on leaf or flower. Forests of trees of a strange tropical vegetation
abounded. There were the fruha, resembling dates; the caspariba,
resembling bananas; the dulra, resembling limes; the jackle,
resembling lemons; the congol, resembling oranges; the velicac,
resembling bread-fruits; the persar, resembling custard apples; the
phyorbal, resembling cocoanuts; the gersin, resembling mangosteens;
the huflar, resembling coffee; the solru, resembling plums; and
presuveet, or tamarinds lining the route. Fruits such as the troupac,
or citron; dewan, or guava; orogor, or mango; and ryeshmush, or
plantain gleamed amid the embowering foliage, and gardens of squangs
and the p