uitting this hall, my guide led me through a gallery richly painted
in compartments, with a barbaric mixture of gold in the colours,
like pictures by Louis Cranach. The subjects described on these walls
appeared to my glance as intended to illustrate events in the history of
the race amidst which I was admitted. In all there were figures, most
of them like the manlike creatures I had seen, but not all in the same
fashion of garb, nor all with wings. There were also the effigies
of various animals and birds, wholly strange to me, with backgrounds
depicting landscapes or buildings. So far as my imperfect knowledge of
the pictorial art would allow me to form an opinion, these paintings
seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring, showing
a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not
arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our
artists--wanting, as it were, a centre; so that the effect was vague,
scattered, confused, bewildering--they were like heterogeneous fragments
of a dream of art.

We now came into a room of moderate size, in which was assembled what I
afterwards knew to be the family of my guide, seated at a table spread
as for repast. The forms thus grouped were those of my guide's wife, his
daughter, and two sons. I recognised at once the difference between
the two sexes, though the two females were of taller stature and ampler
proportions than the males; and their countenances, if still more
symmetrical in outline and contour, were devoid of the softness and
timidity of expression which give charm to the face of woman as seen on
the earth above. The wife wore no wings, the daughter wore wings longer
than those of the males.

My guide uttered a few words, on which all the persons seated rose,
and with that peculiar mildness of look and manner which I have before
noticed, and which is, in truth, the common attribute of this formidable
race, they saluted me according to their fashion, which consists in
laying the right hand very gently on the head and uttering a soft
sibilant monosyllable--S.Si, equivalent to "Welcome."

The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, and heaped a golden
platter before me from one of the dishes.

While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more
at the delicacy than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions
conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance
of any direct reference t