As we neared the great white city it grew upon us in splendor. Minarets and towers, arcades and domes, hanging gardens, tiers of arches rising one above another, majestic colonnades leading to palaces of regal magnificence, delighted and bewildered us. Although white was the predominating color, every conceivable hue and tint was used in ornamentation. Green domes with golden devices. Lapis lazuli columns. Malachite archways communicating with gardens where flowers of a thousand tints mingled in the spray of colored waters, whose trembling waves of iridescent mist would alternately hide and reveal them; where birds sang, and throngs of gayly attired people loitered. These were mere glimpses through the arches; but the parks, the great public spaces of the city where thousands of citizens met for pleasure and recreation, these were a vision of glory which word painting cannot approximate; for dreams of paradise were they, beyond the power of man to conceive. Here the very atmosphere was alive with song birds, whose plumage sparkled like jewels. We were entranced. The sights, the perfumes, and the sounds made the brain reel in its effort to absorb them. When the sense of vision would weary with the shifting pageant beneath, the nerves would be soothed with strange perfumes, whose origin was unseen, but whose effect was marvelous, creating an inexplicable sense of rest and quiet. When this power of enjoyment had reached an apparent climax, it would be relieved by such music as only the voices of the dream-world can equal. Was the place heaven? I do not know; but can only affirm that it was too utterly marvelous, too glorious for language. As we moved slowly above the glittering streets, listening to the musical voices of those below, and watching the excited gestures of the populace, electrified at the sight of us, we marked the varied monuments of beauty, and saw that all were heavily decorated with gold and flashing with precious stones. Not only was this the case, but there existed a grace of outline and proportion nowhere to be found in our world of to-day. Beyond this was a majesty in height and size, eclipsing the creative genius of the most famous architects of history. The ancient Egyptian colonnades must slightly have resembled some of those we saw, judging from the drawings we have of them, but even these were crude, heavy, and cheerless by contrast. The city was indeed a vision of glory and magnificence, whose streets, if not paved with gold, were ornamented with it, and gems beside. I can never give the reader even the faintest conception of what we saw, nor can I recall to my own mind the fullness of the vision. Over all was thrown that rosy haze we had sometimes seen before, and which added distance and dreaminess to the picture.