Such is the outline of my average day, but this programme is often varied. In the first place, every seventh day being a public day of thanks-giving and rest from labour, I have to attend the necessary ceremonies in the temple instead of holding my informal court in the city. On these days, too, I usually ride afield with some of my courtiers, generally to go hunting into the wild mountainous region behind the temple, where the keen air and the wide views over sea and land seem to freshen my body and my spirits. Occasionally I pay a visit on horseback to the seat of some hospitable nobleman, whence we return late at night. At other times I honour some country village with my presence, much to the delight and surprise of its inhabitants. There are no books, as I have already explained, so that in reality my life is necessarily compounded of action and meditation, which on the whole has not hitherto caused me weariness or disgust. Whether or no I shall always rest thus contented with this monotonous routine of splendour and duty is a disagreeable and anxious question that I try, with only moderate success, to thrust into the background of my thoughts. VI Not a day passes here but that I lament my crass ignorance of even the elementary principles of astronomy. In my school-days I was never taught the use of the celestial globe, though my young brains were burdened with the problems and theorems of Euclid, with Greek enclitics and other scholastic lumber, dear to the dry-as-dust soul of the English pedagogue. Such books dealing with the heavens as I chanced to read in later life failed to leave an abiding impression on my adult mind, with the result that now I can only bewail uselessly the gaps in my early education. I mention this defect for a special reason--namely, to crave allowance for the tentative character and amateurish account of the features of my planet, which I want to present to the reader.