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among the lofty stems of a palmyra-grove, which the
waters had inundated.” Mingyan, higher up, which he
describes as lying “ very low, just above the water-level
at its greatest height, and without an inch to spare,”
is now three miles away from the river’s edge.
Approaching Mingyan, I come upon the full moon
rising as the sun dips over the world. “ Vos O
H U L L OF A CirREAT <CH N A U ” A T PA K O KU
Clarissima mundi lunnna, labentem ccelo quce ducitis
annum" ; I murmur the Virgilian invocation. Flocks
of wild duck flying swiftly overhead; slow-winged peey
wits floating parallel with the face of the river; troops
of egrets wheeling in wide circles and showing their
white under-wings to the silver moon; desert palms,
sable against the red-lit west; dark figures of boatmen
on the' river ; and over all the growing beauty of
the moon’s trail on the purple spaces— of such is the
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