Here there were interminable sandy plains, there mountains whose peaks were lost above the clouds.

In the deserts were mirages, on the hill-sides shadows of fleeting clouds sweeping over the forests.
They were in a land of amber-colored date-palms and cypresses, of tamarisks, green myrtles, and oleanders.

At Arbela they had fought against Indian elephants; in the thickets of the Caspian they had roused from his lair the lurking royal tiger.

They had seen animals which, compared with those of Europe, were not only strange, but colossal--the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the camel, the crocodiles of the Nile and the Ganges.

They had encountered men of many complexions and many costumes: the swarthy Syrian, the olive-colored Persian, the black African.