The valley of eyes unseen
remembered the dandy figure he'd cut during the earlier stages of the
expedition, and saw him now after weeks of forced abstention from
washing, the contrast was irresistibly absurd. His hide was scaly with
filth.
Poyning glared at me. 'They don't appear to go in for mirrors here,
Mirlees,' he said rather severely, 'or you'd see you are in a pretty
loathsome condition yourself.'
I looked round the bathing chamber. 'They don't seem to go in for soap
either,' I said, 'and that's worse.'
'Eh? No, apparently not. The fellow made no mention of what we were to
wash with. I suppose the idea is to lie and soak. Here goes!'
He flung himself into the water and stretched his limbs with renewed
crows of delight.
I watched him for a moment or two, until something in his appearance
attracted my gaze more insistently, and I stared with such intentness
that Poyning demanded what was up.
'What does the water feel like?' said I.
'Gorgeous. Why?'
'Look at yourself, man!'
Poyning looked. He jumped out of the water as if he had been stung,
then stared down at his own limbs and up at me in bewilderment.
Ye gods!' he gasped. 'You saw me before I got in, Mirlees. I'm not
dreaming, am I?'
'If you are, I am too. You were filthy as any Tibetan. It must be
something in the water.'
I got into one of the other baths, and saw the same startling
purification overtake my own grimy limbs. I am convinced, too, the
water had not only the trick of cleansing like magic, but some strange
healing virtue; it left the body with a sense of supreme comfort, the
skin soft and smooth; and if there was any unpleasant after-effect, I
never observed it, though I used these baths daily from that time on.
As I lay there, the dull throb of my injured ankle melted gradually
away, not to return. And perhaps the queerest part of it all was that
the water looked as clean when we got out as when we got in.
At the very moment we had dried ourselves the attendants reappeared
without being summoned, in a way that reminded me strongly of the way
the litter-bearers turned up on the hillside; and we were taken into
an adjoining chamber and helped off with the formidable stubble then
disfiguring our chins. Here again that strange healing water took
the place of soap. A white marble basin of it was given us, together
with a curious sort of vegetable sponge and half a dozen razors with
straight handles of rock crystal, looking more like surgical knives
than an outfit to shave with. Yet we had to admit that the operation,
which one of the attendants performed for us, was swift, painless, and
effective. The servants now brought us each a suit of the very simple
lawn garments and sandals we had seen everywhere, which having put on,
we were taken back to the main hall to eat.
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.'
But we were to make no more discoveries that day. The long-delayed
reaction against our tremendous exertions and perils of the past few
days was hard upon us. We must have fallen asleep simultaneously, and
been carried to bed by the attendants, in a log-like insensibility; and
then we slept the clock round _twice_. Whether it was wholly a natural
sleep, or in part prolonged by artificial means for our benefit, I
don't know; I have a very shadowy recollection of coming half awake
once and seeing Kalliboas beside my couch and hearing him speak to me,
but I didn't wake fully till the sun was high, and then I learned on
the indisputable testimony of the servants that it was the third day
from our falling asleep.
We were now both as full of energy as we had been at the beginning
of the expedition, to say nothing of ravenously hungry again; and we
breakfasted on food similar to that of our first meal. Hardly had we
finished eating when Kalliboas appeared.
The old man saluted us with the stern courtesy he invariably showed,
and began to talk to Poyning, slowly, in the language of the valley.
The conversation had to be translated to me sentence by sentence,
but by the end of it I was already beginning to get a hint of the
modifications I must make in _my_ Greek to follow the speech of these
people. I may say that within a week I was able to stumble along with
it myself a little, and before the month was out I could understand
most of what was said to me.
Our first inquiry was, of course, for Philipson.
'You will see him to-day,' said Kalliboas.
'Is he well?' demanded Poyning.
The old man made some answer at which Poyning started slightly.
'What does he say?' I cried.
'Philipson's perfectly well, according to him. But I notice _he speaks
of him as the Prince_.'
We remained staring at one another for an instant. 'And I have more
than a notion the old gentleman does not welcome questions on the
subject,' continued Poyning quietly. 'We must go slow.'
I too had noticed an enhanced stiffness in the old man's manner, as if
he was a little scandalised, and he had certainly looked very straight
at us when the name Philipson caught his ear. Why this should be so I
couldn't guess, but there was very palpably something about him that
warned us to drop the subject. Poyning accordingly did so, and began
asking the old man questions about himself and the city in general. He
answered frankly enough for the most part, though we didn't take long
to grasp that there was a point beyond which we weren't going to get
enlightenment from him. What we did learn was this.
All the people of the valley bore names which, like his own, would
be recognised easily enough as Grecian by any student of classical
antiquity. Kalliboas was headman of a ward of the city, and as such
wielded considerable power. He was responsible to the rulers--Poyning
told me he used a plural here, but omitted to specify who the rulers
were--for the education of all children and for the administration
of the laws. It was astonishing to us to hear him describe this
legal system. No copy of the statutes, said Kalliboas, existed in
writing. They were carried in the memories of the people--not only
of the rulers and headmen of wards, but also of the common people,
being taught to children as soon as they came to a comprehending age,
so that most citizens could repeat the laws of the city by heart.
It seemed incredible that any state, however small, could be run on
such lines, but Kalliboas assured us the system worked smoothly and
well. The laws, he said, were not a whit the less existent for being
unwritten, and they were backed by a very strong public opinion; each
child received such education and training in matters of conduct that
when he grew up he knew better than to transgress against what the
general sense held to be fitting behaviour. If he did, officers were
detailed to remonstrate with him, and Kalliboas told us that on more
than one occasion in the history of the community the delinquent had
been able to bring forward such valid reasons for his unorthodox act
as to cause the law to be altered. From a sort of grim horror the old
fellow betrayed when he spoke of wrong-doing I inferred that crime in
our sense of the word was very rare; and he left on our minds a vague,
fearful impression as to what happened when the state was driven, in
the last resort, to enforce its will.
I had at first been inclined to picture Kalliboas as a priest, but I
soon found that was a misconception. In this community there was no
priesthood strictly on all fours with that of the outer world, for the
very simple reason that there was no religion--or at least nothing
in the way of religious dogma imposed upon the people. Absolute free
thought regarding the position of man in the universe was enjoyed and
encouraged, and though, as we found when we were able to go into the
subject more deeply, the great mass of the people held unanimous views
on such matters, it was only because the wonderful knowledge possessed
by their scientists and commonly shared by the whole community tended
to lead them in the one direction. I shall write more about that
scientific knowledge later on.
Kalliboas startled us a good deal when he told us he was ninety-seven
years old, but there could be no doubt about the figure, for Poyning
got him to repeat it. Though grey-haired, he stood as straight and
moved as supply as an active man of middle age.
'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_.'