Clarence King 



as we paced the Cliff-House veranda) 

 did this insatiable wanderer leave his 

 comfortable land of Central Asia and 

 urge ever westward through forty 

 centuries of toilsome march? He 

 started in the world's youth a simple, 

 pastoral pilgrim, and we saw him pull 

 up his breathless trotters at the very 

 Ultima Tfmle, rush into the barroom, 

 and demand a cocktail. 



Having quenched this ethnic thirst 

 and apparently satisfied the yearning 

 of ages, we watched him gather up 

 his reins and start eastward again, as 

 if for the sources of the sacred 

 Ganges, and disappear in the cloud 

 of his own swift-rushing dirt. 



By the fire in our private breakfast- 

 room we soon forgot him, and you 

 led me again into the company of the 

 good knight. 



Even Alphonso must have felt the 

 chivalric presence, for all unbidden he 

 discreetly hispanized our omelet. 



