106 JUNGLE PEACE 



would condescend to borrow one. He seemed 

 rather emphatic on this point; he especially de- 

 sired that I take one to Colony House. Then 

 he left me. 



The books were without a speck of dust, each 

 volume in its place and aligned with precision. 

 Little by little, as I made my round, nibbling 

 at a book here and there, the secret of the place 

 came to me : it was a library of the past, a dead 

 library. There seemed something uncanny, 

 something unreal about it. Here were hundreds 

 of books, there tables and chairs, but no one ever 

 used them. Yet it was in the center of a large 

 town just above the most frequented gathering- 

 place. More than this the library itself was 

 obsolete. No volume had been added for many 

 years. Most of them were old, old tomes, richly 

 bound in leather and tree calf. Nearly all were 

 strange to me little-known histories and charm- 

 ingly naive " Conversations " and memoirs of 

 generations ago. They were delicately, grace- 

 fully worded, many of them; one could feel the 

 lace and velvet of the sleeve which had touched 

 them; the subtle musty odors of the yellowed 

 page and crumbling leather seemed tinged with 

 faint, strange perfumes. It was astounding and 



