'There were many old men among the people you saw when you were brought here,' he said. 'Some well beyond one hundred years. We are born into this valley in health, and live in harmony with nature, and are without sickness.' It occurred to me afterwards to wonder why the people, if they were such a healthy race as Kalliboas represented, had never overflowed the margins of the valley; and I hadn't studied them long before I came to suspect they had some very effective method of keeping the population stationary, though what it actually was I never discovered. 'What do you call your state?' inquired Poyning. 'We call it Hellas.' 'That is what in our country we call Greece. But there is still a Greece, far beyond the mountains, which is the same country as the Hellas of old.' I saw Poyning's face suddenly fixed in a gape of amazement. 'What is it?' I cried. 'He says,' replied Stephen Poyning, '_that they are well aware of that_.' There were two of us open-mouthed now. It was our first inkling that this hidden race had knowledge of the outer world. Had we known then how that knowledge was obtained, I make no doubt we should have gaped more. 'How did your people come here in the first place?' asked Poyning at length. 'Our forefathers came over the mountains,' replied Kalliboas. 'And are we the first strangers who have ever penetrated into the valley?' It seemed to me that Kalliboas was looking very queerly into Poyning's face when he said this. Also, the old man's manner had grown suddenly stiff, and he now rose as if ignoring the question or not hearing it at all. 'Come,' he said. 'It is commanded that to-day you shall witness an important event in our history. We will depart.'