VALLEY OF THE BLACK RIVER 41 



tigation, causing "all things to droop and lan- 

 guish. ' ' In such a mood I would make my way to 

 one of the half-a-dozen ancient burial-places ex- 

 isting in the neighborhood of the house I was 

 staying at. As a preference I would go to the 

 largest and most populous, where half an acre 

 of earth was strewn thick with crumbling skele- 

 tons. Here by searching closely a few arrow- 

 heads and ornaments, that had been interred with 

 the dead, could also be found. And here I would 

 sit and walk about on the hot barren yellow sand 

 the faithless sand to which the bitter secret had 

 so long ago been vainly entrusted ; careful in walk- 

 ing not to touch an exposed skull with my foot, al- 

 though the hoof of the next wild thing that passed 

 would shatter it to pieces like a vessel of fragile 

 glass. The polished intensely white surfaces of 

 such skulls as had been longest exposed to the sun 

 reflected the noonday light so powerfully that it 

 almost pained the eyes to look at them. In places 

 where they were thickly crowded together, I would 

 stop to take them up and examine them, one by 

 one, only to put them carefully down again; and 

 sometimes holding one in my hand, I would pour 

 out the yellow sand that filled its cavity; and 

 watching the shining stream as it fell, only the 

 vainest of vain thoughts and conjectures were 

 mine. 



