All the inhabitants seemed to be people of great skill; and many of the arts which they practised Daphne would have thought magical, but for the constant assurance of her guide that everything was due simply to the accumulated knowledge of ages.
She saw black charred wood changed into beautiful crystals, and transparent fluids transformed to solid images of exquisite design. Time itself seemed to be defeated at the hands of these cunning workmen, for, in a few moments, she saw a seedling grow into a plant with beautiful flowers, as strong and healthy as if it had taken a whole spring and summer.
Space was conquered in an equally mysterious manner. In a few moments they were carried under the ground, noiselessly and apparently without motion, from one end of the city to the other. The powers of nature also seemed enslaved: the heat of the sun was made to turn vapour into ice, the air was constrained to lift great weights, and light as brilliant as the sun was drawn from running water.
To her amazement, Daphne found that the solid earth had been honey-combed with workings, and forced to yield up abundance of all kinds of treasures.
Streams of molten fluids were drawn from the centre of the earth, and compelled to separate into parts and to congeal into solid metals; and noxious gases were unloosed to drive intricate arrangements of wheels and all kinds of tools.
Daphne began, unwillingly, to feel for Thoth something of the veneration in which he was held by all the people of the place. There seemed to be nothing which he did not understand perfectly, and she thought that it must be this superiority of knowledge which commanded such respect. Her interest in him was keenly aroused, for he seemed compounded of opposite elements.
When simply speaking, he seemed as passionless as snow; but when he removed his mask, his expression revealed sometimes a keen conflict of emotion. Though he seemed in general bold, determined, and inflexible, sometimes his eyes revealed a doubtful hesitancy, and pride and confidence often seemed to give way to despair and self-pity.
Once she said to him, “Is there anything left for thee to discover?” and he replied, with all gravity, “The very beginnings of knowledge are hid from me: my knowledge is a drop in an ocean of ignorance. I have climbed a blind path which, perchance, will soon be lost in a wilderness.” And then he relapsed into a melancholy silence.
Occasionally, in their wanderings and explorations, Daphne saw others disguised like themselves, and treated with similar deference by the people generally. Even these, however, showed to Thoth, on sight of his golden staff, the submission of inferiors.