no ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



case, seeking a way out. But at last, after months 

 and perhaps years, they come in their wanderings 

 to the end of the earth and the stupendous walls 

 and pillars of stone which hold up the immense 

 plain of the sky; there they eventually discover some 

 way by which to ascend and reach that happy 

 country which is their home. 



It was not always so; once the passage from earth 

 to heaven was comparatively an easy one; there was 

 a way then known to every one, dead or living, in 

 the world. It was a tree growing on the river-bank, 

 so high that its topmost branches reached up to 

 heaven. Imagine what a tree that was, its buttressed 

 trunk so big round that a hundred men with arms 

 outspread and hands touching could not have spanned 

 it! There was ample room under the shade of its 

 lower branches for the entire nation to gather and 

 sit at meat, everyone in his place. On higher branches 

 great birds had their nesting-places, and higher still 

 other great birds, eagles and vultures and storks, 

 might be seen soaring skywards, circling upwards 

 until they appeared like black specks in the blue, 

 but beyond these specks the tree rose still until it 

 faded from sight and mixed itself with the universal 

 blue of heaven. By this tree the dead ascended to 

 their future home, climbing like monkeys, and flit- 

 ting and flying like birds from branch to branch, 

 until they came to the topmost branches and to an 

 opening in the great plain, through which they 

 passed into that bright and beautiful place. 



Unhappily this tree fell a long time ago — oh, a 



