"He does not deserve it," said the princess. "You would cruelly offend me. He would think that I had desired you to reproach him, and that I am willing to be reconciled to him. If you love me, do not add this injury to the insult he has offered me." The phœnix, who after all owed his life to the daughter of the king of Babylon, could not disobey her. She set out with all her attendants. "Whither are you going?" said Irla to her. "I do not know," replied the princess; "we will take the first road we find. Provided I fly from Amazan for ever, I am satisfied." [Illustration: Ancient barbarous customs.] ANCIENT BARBAROUS CUSTOMS. William Howitt, in a note to his translation of _The Religion of Rome_, (page 19), points out very clearly the evils which have resulted to man from the sinister teaching of the upholders of ancient barbarous customs:-- "If anyone would satisfy himself of what Popery is at its centre; what it does where it has had its fullest sway, let him make a tour into the mountains in the vicinity of Rome, and see in a country exceedingly beautiful by nature, what is the condition of an extremely industrious population. In the rock towns of the Alban, Sabine, and Volscian hills, you find a swarming throng of men, women, and children, asses, pigs, and hens, all groveling in inconceivable filth, squalor, and poverty. Filth in the streets, in the houses, everywhere; fleas, fever, and small-pox, and the densest ignorance darkening minds of singular natural cleverness. A people brilliant in intellect, totally uneducated, and steeped in the grossest superstition. "These dens of dirt, disease and, till lately, or brigandage, are the evidences of a thousand years of priestly government! They, and the country around them, are chiefly the property of the great princely and ducal families which sprung out of the papal neposm of Rome, and have by successive popes, their founders, been loaded with the wealth of the nation. These families live in Rome, in their great palaces, amidst every luxury and splendor, surrounded by the finest works of art, and leave their tenants and dependents without any attention from them. Some steward or middleman screws the last soldo from them for rent; and when crops fail, lifts not a finger to alleviate their misery.