"It is indeed a lovely land, with its verdant plains, majestic mountains clothed with cedar, and beautiful but narrow rivers. It is covered with fair cities from the peninsula of Tyre to the further limits of Cœle-Syria, and is a rich and lovely kingdom, populous and happy. Its two great cities, Tyre and Sidon, are called the eyes of the world." "I have so heard," he answered, "and when this Ethiopian war ends, and I find time to be absent, I hope to cross the sea to your kingdom and see 'the mother of Egypt,' as she also calls herself; 'the merchant of the seas,' whose galleys have discovered in unknown oceans, beyond the Pillars of the West, the isles of the blessed." "So report our bold and venturous mariners," I answered. "We who stay at home, know not, Sesostris, what marvels lie beyond the seas at the extremity of the plane of the earth's vast area. It is possible that islands and lands of wonderful beauty may exist where the sun wheels over the West to return to his rising in the Orient; and if we credit mariners who follow the shores of the Arabian and Indian seas, there are fair shores from whence come off to them breezes laden with fragrance of unknown flowers, while birds of rare melody fill the air with their songs by day; but at night the odorant forests echo with the dread roar of fierce monsters, that guard the shores from the invasion of man!" "I have sailed along those shores, if I may be so bold as to speak in such a presence, my lord prince," interrupted the captain of the galley, who had stood by listening to our discourse. "Say on, Rathos," answered the prince courteously. "What have you to tell of marvels on foreign seas?" "The lands at the earth's end, your excellency, are not like ours of Egypt. I have seen isles where the men are like larger monkeys, and have a language no one understands, and build their houses in the trees. Evil demons I doubt not, or else souls sent back to earth from Amenthe, by Osiris, to atone for crimes in monstrous forms, neither human nor beast!" "I have heard of these creatures," said I. "How far hast thou sailed, O Rathos?"