Something approaching despair seized me; it was then nearly noon--could I live through another six hours of such torture? I began to speculate as to what were the initial symptoms of heat-apoplexy. The labouring blood thundered in my ears; I felt perilously near delirium. It was as though one were being suffocated in the cellar of a burning house. I stripped off my clothes and grovelled naked on the clay floor, seeking relief in cobwebby corners. In the gloom I caught sight of a bucket of water. I tore a sheet from the bed, soaked it and wrapped it around me. In all my life I had never felt in such physical extremity. However, lying on the ground wrapped in the wet sheet brought a measure of relief. But the miseries of that day will never be forgotten. At length the sun went down--sank in golden ruin among the fang-like peaks of the umber-tinted western mountains. Soon the quivering earth flung off its Nessus-garment and a delicious interval followed. But shortly after nightfall the chilliness of the air became so uncomfortable that I overhauled my belongings in the wagon, seeking a warmer coat. Father Simon, with a smile, produced his thermometer; the mercury stood at 86 Fahrenheit. I learned that five hours previously it had reached 119 in the shade. Next day brought practically no diminution of temperature; but somehow I seemed to have acquired resisting power. The fear of possible collapse, even of death, which came upon me the previous day, had gone. Perhaps the fatigues of the long journey--more especially the heavy digging in the water-pits--may have lowered my vitality. Presently we had another severe ordeal to undergo, for we decided to make our way down the gorge and spend a night on the bank of the river. It seemed as though it would be like descending to the Gehenna-pit. But first to bend an examining eye upon that strange community of men and women,--those adventurers from the Old World to a world immeasurably older and less changeful. So far as I could gather, the personnel consisted of three priests, four lay-brothers and five nuns. It was to those women that my pity went out; they were so pallid, so debilitated,--so incongruous with their surroundings. As they flitted silently about, busied with hospitable service towards the guests, their hands looked like faded leaves. How the conventual habit, albeit the material had been lightened to accord with local conditions, must have weighed them down. The low-roofed, livid-grey brick building in which they lived must have got heated through and through as Father Simon's dwelling did. One of those nuns had, so I was told, lost her reason and was shortly to be removed. Their lot must have been one of continuous martyrdom.