pipe, 'but it must be—the Sumerians built their cities of sun-dried brick. I saw men making bricks and stacking them up to dry along the lake shore. The mud is remarkably like that you find in the Tigris and Euphrates valley. Likely that's why these chaps settled here. The Sumerians wrote on clay tablets by scratching the surface with a sharp point just as the chap was doing in the throne room.
"'Then look at their arms, dress and physiognomy. I've seen their art carved on stone and pottery and wondered if those big noses were part of their faces or part of their helmets. And look at that temple in the lake! A small counterpart of the temple reared to the god El-lil in Nippur—which probably started the myth of the tower of Babel.
"'But the thing that clinches it is the fact that they referred to us as Akkaddians. Their empire was conquered and subjugated by Sargon of Akkad in 2750 B. C. If these are descendants of a band who fled their conqueror, it's natural chat, pent in these hinterlands and separated from the rest of the world, they'd come to call all outlanders Akkaddians, much as secluded Oriental nations call all Europeans Franks in memory of Martel's warriors who scurried diem at Tours.'
"'Why do you suppose they haven't been discovered before now?'
"'Well, if any white man's been here before, they took good care he didn't get out to tell his tale. I doubt if they wander much; probably think the outside world's overrun with bloodthirsty Akkaddians.'
"At this moment the door of our cell opened to admit a slim young girl, clad only in a girdle of silk and golden breastplates. She brought us food and wine, and I noted how lingeringly she gazed at Conrad. And to my surprize she spoke to us in fair Somali.
"'Where are we?' I asked her. 'What are they going to do with us? Who are you?'
"'I am Naluna, the dancer of El-lil,' she answered—and she looked it—lithe as a shc-panther she was. 'I am sorry to see you in this place; no Akkaddian goes forth from here alive.'
"'Nice friendly sort of chaps,' I grunted, but glad to find some one I could talk to and understand. 'And what's the name of this city?'
"'This is Eridu,' said she. 'Our ancestors came here many ages ago from ancient Sumer, many moons to the East. They were driven by a great and cruel king, Sargon of the Akkaddians—desert people. But our ancestors would not be slaves like their kin, so they fled, thousands of them in one great band, and traversed many strange, savage countries before they came to this land.'
"Beyond that her knowledge was very vague and mixed up with myths and improbable legends. Conrad and I discussed it afterward, wondering if the old Sumerians came down the west coast of Arabia and crosseâ the Red Sea about where Mocha is now, or if they went over the Isthmus of Suez and came down on the African side. I'm inclined to the last opinion. Likely the Egyptians met them as they came out of Asia Minor and chased them south. Conrad thought they might have made most of the trip by water, because, as he said, the Persian Gulf ran up something like a hundred and thirty miles farther than it docs now, and Old Eridu was a seaport town. But just at the moment something else was on my mind.
"'Where did you learn to speak Somali?' I asked Naluna.
"'When I was little,' she answered, 'I wandered out of the valley and into the jungle where a band of raiding black men caught me. They sold me to a tribe
