The dress of the hierarchy is simple, consisting outwardly of a white woollen toga-like garment that is free from all ornament. I suspect the adoption of this style of dress is borrowed from that of classical Rome, whose laws and customs evidently form the basis of the Meleagrian constitution. A white wand is carried in the hand, and a white fillet is bound round the temples; only on the two great half-yearly festivals are the ornate gold-fringed garments worn in public. The robes of the Arch-priest are likewise of a white woollen material, which in his case are relieved by a bordure of gold brocade, whilst the wand and fillet are also of gold; but on state occasions he dons magnificent vestments of cloth of gold and wears a golden mitre on his head. The Arch-priest's office is naturally more sacerdotal in its nature than that of his comrades, for it is he who is entrusted with the due performance of all the services of the temple, and he too assists at the solemn ceremony of censing the crystal altar of the Sun, as I have already shown. He is also the custodian of the awful Fountain of Rejuvenation, though his guardianship is shared by other members of the inner ring. One day, finding the venerable head of the council in an unusually expansive mood, I ventured to question him openly upon the properties of this sacred well, this Zem-Zem of Meleagrian un-faith. He replied that its medicated waters, though highly beneficial to a mortal born of the Earth, would prove fatal to any Meleagrian rash enough to attempt their use. Moreover, he added that should anyone plunge alone and unattended into this well, the terrific suction of the current beneath would infallibly drag the body under, never to reappear. I then questioned him if many such accidents had ever occurred, whereupon he answered dryly that none had happened in his own experience; which equivocal reply I interpreted as admitting that fatal incidents in the past were by no means unknown. I then twitted him jokingly for not renewing his own youth, of course with all proper precautions, in the fountain of his charge, to which he replied with considerable asperity and horror, using the most solemn Meleagrian form of denial: "May the God perish first and the Sun be darkened!" After this vigorous negation he took his departure with some abruptness, nor could I ever entice him to speak again of the fountain.