We ascended quickly and safely, and alighted in the midst of a corridor with doorways on either side.
Through one of these doorways I was conducted into a chamber fitted up with an oriental splendour; the walls were tesselated with spars, and metals, and uncut jewels; cushions and divans abounded; apertures as for windows but unglazed, were made in the chamber opening to the floor; and as I passed along I observed that these openings led into spacious balconies, and commanded views of the illumined landscape without.

In cages suspended from the ceiling there were birds of strange form and bright plumage, which at our entrance set up a chorus of song, modulated into tune as is that of our piping bullfinches.

A delicious fragrance, from censers of gold elaborately sculptured, filled the air.

Several automata, like the one I had seen, stood dumb and motionless by the walls.

The stranger placed me beside him on a divan and again spoke to me, and again I spoke, but without the least advance towards understanding each other.
But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I had received from the splinters of the falling rock more acutely that I had done at first.
There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute, lancinating pains in the head and neck.