“In the easiest way in the world,” was my answer. “It only requires a scientifically trained imagination. We will then be able to see anything we like, even if there is nothing.” The princess was delighted. She looked at me with a face expressive of great admiration, and said: “As the glowing tiny spark of the ruby grows into a large red light when it is joined by the flame, so my admiration of thee grows in beholding thy knowledge. No longer art thou veiled to my eyes, for the secret has been revealed, and I behold in thee not a man, but one of the sons of Lucifer, the god to whom no gnome can approach.” “Nonsense!” I said. “The story of Lucifer is only a nursery tale, an exploded humbug, annihilated by science. What do you mean? Who is the Lucifer of whom you are speaking?” “The god of darkness! He who knows that which is not and does not know that which is; he whose temple is beyond the limits of our city, whose portals no gnome can enter without losing his light. Follow me!” Thus saying, the princess dissolved, and assuming her spherical shape floated away, while I followed her as fast as my legs would carry me, for my curiosity was greatly excited. Beyond the city of _Gnana_, the capital of the kingdom of the gnomes, there is a wilderness composed of forests, jungles, and swamps. There you find sandy deserts interspersed with an occasional spot of verdure, and innumerable bogs over which will-o’-the-wisps are aimlessly wandering. Some parts are entirely bare of vegetation, others are covered with a luxuriant growth of curious trees, resembling the Poison Ivy (_Atrus toxicodendron_), upon which grows a tasteless fruit. There was also a species of crab-apple trees, and another bearing a certain kind of nuts, which were awfully hard to crack, and contained nothing but ashes. In some places the spot was covered with fine-looking but poisonous toad-stools, and the ways were full of entangled vines and briers. The main road was leading to nowhere; for after following it until you were exhausted to death, you would find yourself exactly upon the spot from which you started at the beginning. In the midst of this labyrinth there stands a curious-looking castle, looking very solid and strong, with many fortifications; built of sandstone. There are thick walls, surrounded by moats, buttresses, and counterforts guarded by banquettes, abuttes, scarps and palisades, fraises and parapets, ditches and _trous de loup_, all of which look very formidable; but the light has such a peculiar influence upon the material of which the castle is built, as to cause the walls to decompose and rapidly crumble away. The very foundation of the building has so little solidity as to cause the walls slowly but continually to sink, so that it requires a continual repairing and building at the top to cause the castle to remain above the ground and to maintain a respectable appearance.