CHAPTER II. 



A drought Ancient garrison of the entrenchment Traditions of 

 forest Curious ponds A mirage. 



ONCE now and then in the cycle of the years there 

 comes a summer which to the hills is almost like 

 a fever to the blood, wasting and drying up with its 

 heat the green things upon which animal life depends, 

 so that drought and famine go hand in hand. The 

 days go by and grow to weeks, the weeks lengthen to 

 months, and still no rain. The sun pours down his 

 burning rays, which become hotter as the season ad- 

 vances ; the sky is blue and beautiful over the hills 

 beautiful, but pitiless to the bleating flocks beneath. 

 The breeze comes up from the south, bringing with it 

 white clouds sailing at an immense height, with open- 

 ings between like azure lakes or aerial Mediterraneans 

 landlocked by banks of vapour. 



These, if you watch them from the rampart, slowly 

 dissolve ; fragments break away from the mass as the 

 edges of the polar glaciers slip off the ice cliff into the 

 sea, only these are noiseless. The fragment detached 

 grows visibly thinner and more translucent, its margin 

 stretching out in an uneven fringe : the process is 



