[1] Tishnar is a very ancient word in Munza, and means that which cannot be thought about in words, or told, or expressed. So all the wonderful, secret, and quiet world beyond the Mulgars' lives is Tishnar—wind and stars, too, the sea and the endless unknown. But here it is only the Beautiful One of the Mountains that is meant. So beautiful is she that a Mulgar who dreams even of one of her Maidens, and wakes still in the presence of his dream, can no longer be happy in the company of his kind. He hides himself away in some old hole or rocky fastness, lightless, matted, and uncombed, and so thins and pines, or becomes a Wanderer or Môh-mulgar. But it is rare for this to be, for very few Mulgars dream beyond the mere forest, as it were; and fewer still keep the memories of their dreams when the livelong vision of Munza returns to their waking eyes. The Valleys of Tishnar lie on either flank of the Mountains of Arakkaboa, though she herself wanders only in the stillness of the mountain snows. She is shown veiled on the rude pots of Assasimmon and in Mulgar scratch-work, with one slim-fingered hand clasping her robe of palest purple, her head bent a little, as if hearkening to her thoughts; and she is shod with sandals of silver. Of these things the wandering Oomgar-nuggas, or black men, tell. From Tishnar, too, comes the Last Sleep—the sleep of all the World. The last sleep just of their own life only is N[=o=o]manossi—darkness, change, and the unreturning. And Immanâla is she who preys across these shadows, in this valley. So, too, the Mulgars say, "N[=o=o]ma, N[=o=o]ma," when they mean shadow, as "In the sun paces a leopard's N[=o=o]ma at her side." Meermut, which means in part also shadow, is the shadow, as it were, of lesser light lost in Tishnar's radiance, just as moonlight may cast a shadow of a pine-tree across a smouldering fire. There is, too, a faint wind that breathes in the first twilight and starshine of Munza called the Wind of Tishnar. It was, I think, the faint murmur of this wind that echoed in the ear of Mutta-matutta as she lay dying, for in dying one hears, it is said, what in life would carry no more tidings to the mind than light brings to the hand. Nod's bells that he heard, and thought were his father's, must have been the Zevveras' bells of Tishnar's Water-middens, all wandering Meermuts. These Water-middens, or Water-maidens, are like the beauty of the moonlight. The countless voices of fountain, torrent, and cataract are theirs. They, with other of Tishnar's Maidens, come riding on their belled Zevveras, and a strange silence falls where their little invisible horses are tethered; while, perhaps, the Maidens sit feasting in a dell, grey with moonbeams and ghostly flowers. Even the sullen Mullabruk learns somehow of their presence, and turns aside on his fours from the silvery mist of their glades and green alleys, just as in the same wise a cold air seems to curdle his skin when some haunting N[=o=o]ma passes by. All the inward shadows of the creatures of Munza-mulgar are N[=o=o]manossi's; all their phantoms, spirits, or Meermuts are Tishnar's. And so there is a never-ending changeableness and strife in their short lives. The leopard (or Roses, as they call her, for the beauty of her clear black spots) is Meermut to her cubs, N[=o=o]ma to the dodging Skeetoes she lies in wait for, stretched along a bough. Her beauty is Tishnar's; the savagery of her claws is Nōōmanossi's. So Munza's children are dark or bright, lovely or estranging, according as Meermut or Nōōma prevails in their natures. And thus, too, they choose the habitation of their bodies. Yet because dark is but day gone, and cruelty unkindness, therefore even the heart-shattering Nōōmanossi, even Immanâla herself, is only absent Tishnar. But there, as everyone can see, I am only chattering about what I cannot understand.

[2] "Meermut" is shadow, phantom, spectre, or even the pictured remembrance of anything in the mind.

[3] On the right or cudgel side, the Mulgars say, sits Bravery; on the winking, woman, or left side, Craft.

[4] First Sleep is night-sleep; Second Sleep is swoon-sleep; Third Sleep is death, or Nōōmanossi. So, too, the Mulgars say, the first is "Little-go," the second is "Great-go," and the third is "Come-no-more"; as if their bodies were a lodging, and sleep a kind of out-of-doors.