The grandeur of this immense woodland, as we approached its border, both awed and amazed us. The wood we had passed at the north was nothing more than a grove of trees when compared with the grand primeval forest that covered the mountain as far as the eye could reach.
We hardly knew whether to turn to the east or west from this point, and so we asked Ilalah if she had any idea in which direction lay the valley where the “white pebbles” were found.
She had none at all. The law forbidding the Techlas to gather these pebbles was passed by the king her father years ago, when she was but a child. No one had ever mentioned in her hearing where they had been found.
Fairly bewildered as to our whereabouts, by this time, we turned to the left and, easily fording now the shallow streams we encountered, visited several valleys without having a notion whether any of them was the one we sought, or not.
Finally I said to the princess:
“The place we seek has a great rock of red granite stone in the center, and a part of the rock points like an arm directly at the forest.”
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed; “that place I remember well, for I have visited it often as a girl.”
Here was cheering news, indeed.
“Is it near here?” asked Duncan.
“It is far to the right,” she answered, after some thought. “We should not have come in this direction at all.”