WHITE DUCK 109 



dead inhabit, and all trees and flowers abound as on 

 earth, and all animals and birds, including ducks, but 

 more beautiful than here below. Every one may know 

 that the country is there because of the bluencss; for 

 the air, the void, has no colour, but all matter seen at a 

 distance appears blue — water and trees and mountains; 

 only the sky country is at so vast a distance that we see 

 nothing but the blue colour of it. But there are open- 

 ings or windows in the great plain, and these are the 

 stars, and through these windcnvs the clear, brilliant 

 light of that country shines down on us when it is dark. 

 How do the dead get there — flying like soaring birds, 

 up, up. up. until they come to it? They can certainly 

 fly like birds, but no high-soaring bird and no disem- 

 bodied spirit can rise by flying to so immense a height; 

 yet when men die they have no thought and desire but 

 for that country, and have no rest or pleasure here, but 

 roam up and down the earth, flying from the sight of 

 human beings, even of their nearest relations and friends, 

 because they are now invisible to mortal eyes, and to 

 find themselves unrecognised and unheard when they 

 speak and no longer remembered is intolerable to them. 

 Therefore, by day, when people are abroad, they fly 

 to forests and uninhabited places, where they lie, but 

 at night they come forth to range the earth in the form 

 of owls and nightjars and loons and rails and all other 

 wandering night-birds with wild and lamentable voices. 

 Night by night they wander, crying out their misery 

 and asking of those they meet to tell them of some way 

 of escape from earth so that they might come at last 



