78 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



give to all those immortals the power of ren- 

 dering themselves visible, and when it was 

 exhausted by man's encroachments they fell 

 away into invisibility. And if some hidden 

 cave in the world could now be found where 

 nature has never been disturbed by even the 

 simplest art, may be there might be discovered 

 one or two happy deities revelling in the mer- 

 est pool, so to speak, of what was once the 

 great ocean of their " peculiar element." If 

 this theory is true the gods are invisible, not 

 dead, and they are invisible not from their 

 own choice, but because their " peculiar ele- 

 ment " is exhausted which, while it lasted, 

 made visibility possible. 



I have no certain recollection of having 

 been poring over this or any similar train of 

 semi-reasoning, nor have I the faintest knowl- 

 edge of what I was thinking of, when my 

 guide, halting suddenly and knocking the 

 ashes from his pipe into the hollow of his 

 great brown hand, said, " Well, here we are." 

 At the sound of his rather gentle though deep 

 and sonorous voice, I looked around, feeling 

 as if I had been aroused from a dreamful slum- 

 ber, without power to recall any definite idea 

 of my dreams. 



Every one has experienced this feeling when 

 straying in an idle, musing way through some 

 still grove or quiet meadow. Suddenly, as if 

 by a spell of enchantment everything looks 

 strange. Even the sunlight' is unlike itself. 

 The sough of the wind is peculiarly impressive. 

 Even the color of the grass is changed. 

 You rub your eyes ; but it is some time before 

 you see, hear and feel natural. 



So with me just then. I was well aware, to be 



