Instead of continuing along the road, however, I now retraced my steps to the wall, for the presence of the ant-men had made me certain that I was still in Formia, and hence it became necessary for me to find some place where I could get through to the other side. Accordingly, I proceeded along beside the wall. The day was warm and moist, as are all days on Poros, but as I went on the weather got hotter, damper and more oppressive. Finally the sky began to turn dark. “Aha!” said I. “Now it is evening, and I shall be able to get my bearings by the pink light in the west.” But no pink light appeared on any hand. Never before had I seen a night descend like this upon this planet. Then with a crash the sky was split in two by a living flame, and the storm broke in all its fury. The roar of the thunder was like a continuous artillery barrage. Spiral vorticles of wind hurled the rain in my face and nearly twisted me off my feet, as I anchored myself to a tree trunk to withstand its fury. But fortunately the storm was as brief as it was severe, and soon I was again pressing on beneath silver skies. In spite of the storm, the weather kept on getting more and more oppressive, until, on cresting a hill, I saw before me the cause of all the trouble. About two stads ahead there rose a solid wall of vapor, stretching away to the horizon on each side and to the silver clouds above, and giving forth such an intense heat in my direction that I could scarcely bear it. Every now and then a few drops of scalding water would fall on me from above. This must be the Boiling Sea, of which I had heard so much and which surrounds all continental Poros. It was an impressive sight. The pale ended only about a stad ahead, and yet for the life of me I could not summon up courage enough to try and pass around its end. In fact, I could not conceive how the wall ever could have been built even that far, in the face of that terrific heat. Later I learned that it had been built little by little behind a huge screen of woven fire-worm fur, and only during off-shore breezes at that. Well, there was nothing for me to do but turn around and retrace my steps, back to the Valley of the Howling Rocks and beyond, in search for an opening through the wall. I was well beyond the Valley when my earthly ears caught the sound of an approaching kerkool, and as the road was fortunately passing through the woods at the time, I hid myself in a convenient tartan bush. But this time I displaced one of the huge leaves sufficiently so that, with one eye, I could cover the road. What was my joy to note, as the car passed, that it was of Cupian make and held Cupians! When the kerkool was safely out of sight and hearing, I resumed my march, and soon came in view of a city of a type so different from any which I had previously seen on Poros that it might well have belonged to another world.