Breathless from running through the desert night--

--it is now noon, and we have broken onto a plain of soft grass and curious striped horses. Some of them speak passing-fair Arabic, but their parsing of Persian is abysmal, as is their command of Khazar, their telling of Turkic tall-tales, and their yapping of yarns in Yemeni.

One curious animal, however, did tell me and the few loyal men who stayed with me after the [long description of escape, mutiny, adjudication via hand-games, reconciliation, re-mutiny, capture by confused anti-Klemizonian Quozites, re-escape, mutiny x3, etc., missing --ed. Chronolectus] at length concerning the history of Babylon, which my favourite chair-crafter is always going on about. The little animal even had a pointed quotation for me:

But if he were actually to have barley poured into carrying-nets, and to have it loaded on the pack-asses at whose sides reserve donkeys have been placed, and were to have it heaped up in a pile in the courtyard of Aratta -- were he really to heap it up in such a manner; and were Inana, the luxuriance of the grain pile, who is the "illuminator of the lands," the "ornament of the settlements," who adorns the seven walls, who is the heroic lady, fit for battle, who, as the heroine of the battleground, makes the troops dance the dance of Inana -- were she actually to cast off Aratta as if to a carrion-pursuing dog, then in that case I should submit to him; he would indeed have made me know his preeminence; like the city, I in my smallness would submit to him.

Ha, what a laugh! It cheered me up to stay and talk to the little animal all night, even though its asymmetric arms and lack of teeth disturbed me greatly.

Who knows what the starry skies hold for us? Does the Mullah? No--I think he doesn't. Does my (spit on him!) camel? No, though he speaks so well of the Future, as if we were certain to grow into seasoned old men with interesting hobbies, and not to die, utterly desiccated amongst weird fauna in a weird land.

The Quozite war-howls are not far off. I will write again, in further detail, of our escape soon. For now, I merely enjoy a pear...

[Here the bark breaks off...]