The meal was simple in the extreme, consisting only of delicate white birds and plain vegetables, yet I had never in my life eaten tastier food. The birds were rather larger than pigeons, and the vegetables, though I couldn't give a name to one of them, seemed not greatly unlike the lettuces and artichokes and what not that figure in our European bills of fare. In the method of cooking, however, there must have been a wide divergence, for though the stuff was presented quite plain, somehow or other a most exquisite flavour had been imparted to it. I may say here that every meal we afterwards ate in the valley was hardly less simple than this one, and that we throve mightily on the plain diet. The natives themselves regarded anything in the way of elaborate food with absolute detestation, and even their banquets were what we should call Spartan in their simplicity. After the discomforts of camp life we made no bones about eating a meal lying down, but it took us aback to find nothing was given us to eat with. Even in the roughest stages of our tramp across the mountains we'd never been reduced to less than a clasp-knife. The food now laid before us, however, had already been divided into handy mouthfuls, and was moreover totally free from grease, and we soon got over our scruples at adopting what appeared to be the custom of the valley--to eat with the fingers. We ate, and continued eating in a fashion that must have startled the attendants, for they had to reload our platters three or four times before we were satisfied. There was no other course, or anything else at all except a white wine, which was mildly intoxicating but didn't arouse, so far as I could ever detect, any inclination to drink more. Poyning pushed away his platter with a long sigh. 'So much for the belly-need,' he said. 'I would the hunger for knowledge could be as easily sated. It's about time the elderly gentleman who calls himself Kalliboas came back to enlighten us a little on this valley of the Grecians.' 'I can't get it comfortably settled in my mind they are Greek,' said I, 'or how in Hades they got here, or how long they've been in residence.' 'For that matter,' replied Poyning, 'I can't altogether rid myself of an idea that we shall wake up on those ghastly mountains in a minute. But if it is real, these people are certainly Greek. I'm an honours man, Mirlees, but I may tell you I little expected ever to meet my old Olympians in the flesh. We must ply the ancient Kalliboas when he comes. I'd also be glad to hear how Philipson finds himself.'