The asterisks stand for the time I have spent in looking at it. Freely translated they should express an apology. I find it one of the pernicious tendencies of living on this shelf that my eyes constantly wander out there taking my mind with them, which at once becomes no more than a vacant mirror of blue abysses. I look, I know, immensely serious and thoughtful, and Thisbe, believing me on the tip of some high imagination goes round the other way, whereas I am the merest reflecting puddle with exactly a puddle’s enjoyment of the scene. There is neither virtue nor profit in this, but if I apologized every time I did it these chapters would be impassable with asterisks. Thisbe’s method is much more reasonable; she takes her view immediately after she takes her breakfast. Coming out upon the verandah she looks at it intelligently, pronounces it perfectly lovely or rather hazy, returns to her employments, and there is an end to the matter. One cannot always, in Thisbe’s opinion, be referring to views. I wish I could adopt this calm and governed attitude. I should get on faster in almost every way. It is my ignominious alternative to turn my back upon the prospect and look up the khud. Into my field of vision comes Atma, doing something to a banksia rose-bush that climbs over a little arbour erected across a path apparently for the convenience of the banksia rose-bush. Atma would tell you, protector of the poor, that he is the gardener of this place; as a matter of feet his relation to it is that of tutelary deity and real proprietor. I have talked in as large a way as if it belonged to Tiglath-Pileser because he pays for the repairs, but I should have had the politeness at least to mention Atma, whose claims are so much better. So far as we are concerned Atma is prehistoric; he was here when we came and when we have completed the tale of _one_ years of exile and gone away he will also be here. His hut is at the very end of the shelf and I have never been in it, but if you asked him how long he has lived there he would say, “Always.” It must make very little difference to Atma what temporary lords come and give orders in the house with the magnificent tin roof where they have table-cloths; some, of course, are more troublesome than others, but none of them stay. He and his bulbs and perennials are the permanent undisputed facts; it is unimaginable that any of them should be turned out.