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Rh The crowd dispersed, and some returned to their former pastimes. For my own part, I preferred to walk alone with Alvarez along the brink of the beautiful valley. We were now on our former footing, and I felt how foolish it was to have grieved so much over her keeping company with Omalonzi, for, after all, there was probably no love between them.

"Have you anything to equal the Poroporia in other parts of the world?" she inquired.

I answered that 1 must confess I had never seen one on such a grand scale before, and also passed an opinion about the suitability of the vicinity for dwellings.

"I do not think I would like it," she said; "it is too awe-inspiring. Whenever I view it, it draws me towards itself, and at the same time I feel a kind of shrinking from it. It makes me feel so insignificant, so palpably aware of my own littleness, that I feel as if I wished to be away from it, and at the same time causes a melancholy cloud to creep over me, and I feel sad; and yet the sadness it produces cannot be said to be unpleasant. No," she continued, "I would prefer a home in the wild mountains to one in the neighbourhood of this lovely abyss."