Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/205

 relatives. It would have puzzled me, however, to determine whether the palm of beauty was due to the girlish grace of the vioran of the unconfined and silken tresses, or to the more self-poised and perfected beauty of the zeruun with the braided locks. The first, perhaps, excited more interest; the latter, more admiration. As for my male cousins between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, they were, with few exceptions, absent as zerdars. Of other young men, however,—and fine young fellows they were,—there was a number fully compensating for the absent sons of the soil.

"We take our mid-day meal in common to-day," said Utis, when I had been surrendered to him by Ialma. Under his guidance I approached an extensive building on the farther side of the esplanade.

It was of marble, and apparently of considerable antiquity. In style it differed in many particulars from the other public buildings of the place. Around the outside, and surrounding the inner quadrangular space, were spacious colonnades, supported by slender pillars, whose capitals were conventionalized forms, suggested by ears of ripened maize with half-pendent husk. This edifice, so well preserved externally, was the gift of a former son of the place, who, some twelve hundred years before, had thus adorned his native village. He had thus effectually perpetuated his memory, and left an enduring object of legitimate pride to the bearers of his name during fifty generations.

"We cannot boast of so ancient a town-hall as can be shown in many other villages," said Utis, as we paused a moment to survey it. "But it is considered a fine specimen of the then prevailing style."