When the birds fly south

High among the snow-tipped ranges of Afghanistan, there is a peak notable for its peculiar rocky crown. Unlike its lordly neighbors, it is dominated not by crags and glaciers, b...

Hours must have passed while I lay without movement or consciousness. For when at length I came to a confused awareness of myself, the scene had changed alarmingly. The fog must...

How we accomplished the descent is one of the mysteries that will always be associated in my mind with the Valley of Sobul. Even for the unhampered traveler, as I was to learn,...

For more than five weeks I lay on my sick-bed, at first close to death, then slowly convalescing. After my rescue and temporary revival, a raging fever had attacked me; and I ha...

Now for the first time I saw the village of Sobul. It was composed of several scores of cabins like that in which I had been confined; and these were sprawled over a broad clear...

It was in a bitter mood that I trudged back to Sobul. Even the mirth and laughter of Yasma could not dispel my gloom; I was as one who has seen a black vision, one who has read...

Even before I began to succumb to the mysteries of Sobul, the country was captivating me with a subtle spell. There seemed to be something magical about the noiseless atmosphere...

Then it was that I became aware of an undercurrent of excitement in the village, a suppressed agitation which I could not explain, which none would explain to me, and which I re...

During the weeks before the firelight celebration, I had gradually made friends with the various natives. This was not difficult, for the people were as curious regarding me as...

As October drifted by and November loomed within two weeks' beckoning, a striking change came over Sobul. The very elements seemed to feel and to solemnize that change, which wa...

When I staggered back to my cabin through the snow-storm in the November dusk, I could not realize the ghastliness of my misfortune. My mind seemed powerless before the bleak re...

During the long months of solitude I let my gaze travel frequently toward the southern mountains and Yulada. Like the image of sardonic destiny, she still stood afar on the peak...

It was with a flaming expectation and a growing joy that I watched the spring gradually burst into blossom. The appearance of the first green grass, the unfolding of the pale ye...

Had it been possible to consult Abthar immediately in the effort to fathom Yasma's strange conduct, I would have wasted only so much time as was necessary to take me to the fath...

Had I been the man that I was before my arrival in Sobul, I should not have thought twice about Abthar's warnings. I should have laughed at them as the wild imaginings of a prim...

Even after Yasma and I had agreed, it was no easy matter to carry out our plans. We foresaw that most of the villagers would be unalterably prejudiced; that they would regard ou...

A wedding among the Ibandru is celebrated by twenty-four hours of feasting and rejoicing. All members of the tribe are invited, and all are expected to participate; no one is pe...

Whenever I recall my sorrows and misfortunes in Sobul, I am tormented also by happy memories that wound like fresh trials. And foremost among those memories I place my first few...

With what sadness I watched the autumn gradually return to Sobul! The crimson and tan and russet woods, glowing with a forlorn and dying inner radiance, were tragic as with the...

It would be pointless to dwell at length upon my second winter in Sobul. In everything essential, it was a repetition of the winter before. There were the same long solitary mon...

When at last I saw the green leaves unfolding on the trees, the green grass springing up in every meadow and the orchards bursting into flower, my hopes and fears of the year be...

When the days were shortening once more toward fall and the forest leaves were showing their first tinges of yellow, I knew that I was approaching an all-important turning point...

As the evening twilight came earlier and the trees were burnished a deeper scarlet and gold, a strange mood came over Yasma. She was no longer her old frolicsome self; she would...

Again it was winter in Sobul. The snow lay deep in the deserted fields, and in the woods it wove strange arabesques about the limbs of leafless trees; the mountains were white w...