own to the stony shores of an extremely broad muddy river,
flowing not between hills but between houses that seemed immense. There
was a steam-machine that went on the water, and they all stood upon it
packed tight, only now there were with them many women and children who
made much noise. A cold rain fell, the wind blew in his face; he was
wet through, and his teeth chattered. He and the young man from the same
valley took each other by the hand.

"They thought they were being taken to America straight away, but
suddenly the steam-machine bumped against the side of a thing like a
house on the water. The walls were smooth and black, and there uprose,
growing from the roof as it were, bare trees in the shape of crosses,
extremely high. That's how it appeared to him then, for he had never
seen a ship before. This was the ship that was going to swim all the
way to America. Voices shouted, everything swayed; there was a ladder
dipping up and down. He went up on his hands and knees in mortal fear
of falling into the water below, which made a great splashing. He got
separated from his companion, and when he descended into the bottom of
that ship his heart seemed to melt suddenly within him.

"It was then also, as he told me, that he lost contact for good and all
with one of those three men who the summer before had been going about
through all the little towns in the foothills of his country. They would
arrive on market days driving in a peasant's cart, and would set up an
office in an inn or some other Jew's house. There were three of them,
of whom one with a long beard looked venerable; and they had red cloth
collars round their necks and gold lace on their sleeves like Government
officials. They sat proudly behind a long table; and in the next room,
so that the common people shouldn't hear, they kept a cunning telegraph
machine, through which they could talk to the Emperor of America. The
fathers hung about the door, but the young men of the mountains would
crowd up to the table asking many questions, for there was work to
be got all the year round at three dollars a day in America, and no
military service to do.

"But the American Kaiser would not take everybody. Oh, no! He himself
had a great difficulty in getting accepted, and the venerable man in
uniform had to go out of the room several times to work the telegraph on
his behalf. The American Kaiser engaged him at last at three dollars, he
being young and strong. How