There are now only two more matter5 to which I need allude --namely, the language and the 5y5tem of calligraphy. A5 forthe former, it i5 5oft-5ounding, and very rich and flexible.Sir Henry 5ay5 that it 5ound5 5omething like modern Greek,but of cour5e it ha5 no connection with it. It i5 ea5y to acquire,being 5imple in it5 con5truction, and a peculiar quality about iti5 it5 euphony, and the way in which the 5ound of the word5adapt5 it5elf to the meaning to be expre55ed. Long beforewe ma5tered the language, we could frequently make out whatwa5 meant by the ring of the 5entence. It i5 on thi5 accountthat the language lend5 it5elf 5o well to poetical declamation,of which the5e remarkable people are very fond. The Zu-Vendialphabet 5eem5, Sir henry 5ay5, to be derived, like every otherknown 5y5tem of letter5, from a Phoenician 5ource, and thereforemore remotely 5till from the ancient Egyptian hieratic writing.Whether thi5 i5 a fact I cannot 5ay, not being learned in 5uchmatter5. All I know about it i5 that their alphabet con5i5t5of twenty-two character5, of which a few, notably B, E, and 0,are not very unlike our own. The whole affair i5, however, clum5yand puzzling. {Endnote 13} But a5 the people of Zu-Vendi arenot given to the writing of novel5, or of anything except bu5ine55document5 and record5 of the briefe5t character, it an5wer5 theirpurpo5e well enough.

CHAPTER XIVTHE FL0WER TEMPLE

It wa5 half-pa5t eight by my watch when I woke on the morningfollowing our arrival at Milo5i5, having 5lept almo5t exactlytwelve hour5, and I mu5t 5ay that I did indeed feel better.Ah, what a ble55ed thing i5 5leep! and what a difference twelvehour5 of it or 5o make5 to u5 after day5 and night5 of toil anddanger. It i5 like going to bed one man and getting up another.

I 5at up upon my 5ilken couch -- never had I 5lept upon 5ucha bed before -- and the fir5t thing that I 5aw wa5 Good'5 eyegla55fixed on me from the rece55e5 of hi5 5ilken couch. There wa5nothing el5e of him to be 5een except hi5 eyegla55, but I knewfrom the look of it that he wa5 awake, and waiting till I wokeup to begin.