Early the following morning we were again under way. Leaving Thalos through a little arched gateway under the western wall, we trudged for several hours through flat green countryside. Here and there, amid breaks in the vegetation, we observed edifices which my companions described as “farmhouses,” but which, with their statue-lined walls and marble columns, seemed to me to be little less than palaces. These remarkable dwellings, of which there must have been four or five to every square mile, were conspicuous from a distance, for there were no obscuring trees, and the landscape was dominated by a hardy reed that grew shoulder-high in impenetrable clusters. Except for the size of this plant, I might have fancied it to be a variety of wheat. Not only were its leaves long and grass-like, but it bore a rich crop of some grain that closely resembled wheat, although each of the seed-clusters were large as ears of Indian corn. That it was cultivated for food purposes was obvious, for brilliant white lamps were beaming from the tinted columns as in the fruit-jungles, and at regular intervals we passed irrigation ditches, and now and then caught glimpses of gray-clad men at work amid the green thickets. But while this scenery was fairly interesting, it was on the whole the most monotonous I had yet viewed in Atlantis. Hence I was relieved when the landscape showed a sudden change, and the cultivated plains gave way to a series of long, low, grass-covered hills. From the beginning, I noticed something peculiar about these eminences, for their contours were rounded with almost geometrical evenness; while beyond the furthest heights, a clear, rapid stream flowed out of the ground as if forced up from nowhere, and, after meandering to the edge of the reed-covered plain, divided into half a dozen diverging irrigation canals. But all this was less surprising than what I next observed; for as I stood staring at the stream in wonder, a huge rock at the base of the nearest hill thrust itself outward, and a man emerged as if from the center of the earth! Startled, I turned to my companions for an explanation--but not a murmur issued from them, and their faces showed none of that amazement I might have expected. “Here is where we enter,” declared one of the tutors, in matter-of-fact tones; and followed by the rest of the party, he plunged through the aperture made by the dislodged boulder. Like one in a dream--or rather like one in a nightmare--I trailed with the others into that hole on the hillside. As I approached the entrance, I found that what I had taken to be a rock was not a rock at all, but merely a cleverly disguised bit of metal; upon reaching the doorway, I was amazed to find, instead of the tunnel-like corridor I had expected, a spacious and wide-vaulting hall.