Indeed there were other things that absorbed Alan's attention.

Looking through the peepholes and cracks in the curtains, he saw that at last they had reached the crest of a ridge up which they had been climbing for hours.

Before them lay a vast and fertile valley, much of which seemed to be under cultivation, and down it flowed a broad and placid river.

Opposite to him and facing west a great tongue of land ran up to a wall of mountains with stark precipices of black rock that seemed to be hundreds, or even thousands, of feet high, and at the tip of this tongue a mighty waterfall rushed over the precipice, looking at that distance like a cascade of smoke.

This torrent, which he remembered was called Raaba, fell into a great pool and there divided itself into two rushing branches that enclosed an ellipse of ground, surrounded on all sides by water, for on its westernmost extremity the branches met again and after flowing a while as one river, divided once more and wound away quietly to north and south further than the eye could reach.