It is not strange that like the nations of the Incas these people should be worshippers of the sun. To them comes the fullest realization of its life-giving glory, and the joyless stagnation of the death-breathing dark. We who sleep through much of the sun’s absence come naturally to regard it somewhat as a useful and not always agreeable adjunct to our lives. Yet even we, after days of dull weather—black nights and murky mornings—welcome joyously the return of the life-giver, while to these people it would be strange indeed if the great luminary had not become at least the shining symbol of Infinity. The terrace form of their dwelling is, I think, suggested by the sun’s gradual circling ascent and descent of the sky, and from the topmost step or story they assemble to bid it joyous welcome and reverential farewell. The world itself here appears to be a sort of terrace, the first step of which we ascended when we reached the Violet Fields. The next is the approach to the land ruled over by the Prince’s serene sister, whom we are soon to see, for though we are loth to depart from this pleasant vale, we are daily required by a mental message from her to proceed farther on our journey. To-morrow, therefore, or the next day, or the day after, we must ascend still higher this enchanted river and “pause not unduly, nor idly linger”—so her august message runs—until we shall arrive at the palace of the Lady of the Lilied Hills. XXX. THE LADY OF THE LILIES. And now, indeed, we are in the land of anodyne and oblivion. Once more we dream and forget, and the palace of the Prince dims out and fades, even as the barges that brought us drift back down the tide and disappear in the distant blue. Here is the world’s enchanted and perfumed casket, and here within it lies the world’s rarest jewel of sorcery—the Princess of the Lilied Hills. We have been here but a brief time—I no longer keep a record of the days—and we are bound hand and foot, as it were, by the spell of this Circe of the South. In the first moment that we were ushered into her presence, and beheld her in her white robe of state, embroidered with the pale yellow flower of her kingdom, whatever remained to us of the past slipped away like water through the fingers. Chauncey Gale forgot that he had a yacht, and both of us that he had a daughter. Mr. Sturritt forgot everything but his packages of pink lozenges, which he reverentially laid at her feet, thereby earning her cordial acknowledgments and our bitter jealousy.