The highways of the Achaemenids--yes, and which before them had trembled to the tramplings of the myriads of the godlike Dravidian conquerors.
We had slipped over ancient Iranian trails; over paths which the warriors of conquering Alexander had traversed; dust of bones of Macedons, of Greeks, of Romans, beat about us; ashes of the flaming ambitions of the Sassanidae whimpered beneath our feet--the feet of an American botanist, a Chinaman, two Tibetan ponies.

We had crept through clefts whose walls had sent back the howlings of the Ephthalites, the White Huns who had sapped the strength of these same proud Sassanids until at last both fell before the Turks.
Over the highways and byways of Persia's glory, Persia's shame and Persia's death we four--two men, two beasts--had passed.

For a fortnight we had met no human soul, seen no sign of human habitation.
Game had been plentiful--green things Chiu-Ming might lack for his cooking, but meat never.

About us was a welter of mighty summits.

We were, I knew, somewhere within the blending of the Hindu-Kush with the Trans-Himalayas.
That morning we had come out of a ragged defile into this valley of enchantment, and here, though it had been so early, I had pitched my tent, determining to go no farther till the morrow.
It was a Phocean vale; a gigantic cup filled with tranquillity.