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They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who theiant turtle

They say that the elephants, being such huge beasts, have bones of rock and iron, and nerves of gold for better conductivity over long distances

They say that the fifth elephant cah the ato and landed hard enough to split continents and raise mountains

No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical question: when h the sky, and there is no one to hear it, does it - philosophically speaking - make a noise?

And if there was no one to see it hit, did it actually hit?

In other words, wasn"t it just a story for children, to explain away so natural occurrences?

As for the dwarfs, whose legend it is, and who mine a lot deeper than other people, they say that there is a grain of truth in it

On a clear day, froe point on the Ra way across the plains If it was high summer, they could count the columns of dust as the ox trains plodded on, at a top speed of two ons carrying four tons apiece Things took a long tiet anywhere, but when they did, there was certainly a lot of them To the cities of the Circle Sea they carried raw material, and sometimes people ere off to seek their fortune and a fistful of diamonds

To the s from across the oceans, and people who had found wisdom and a few scars

There was usually a day"s travelling between each convoy They turned the landscape into an unrolled time machine On a clear day you could see last Tuesday

Heliographs twinkled in the distant air as the colues back and forth, about bandit presence, cargoes and the best place to get double egg, treble chips and a steak that overhung the plate all round

Lots of people travelled on the carts It was cheap, it beat walking, and you got there eventually

Some people travelled for free

The driver of one wagon was having problems with his team They were skittish He"d expect this in the ard the oxen as a travelling es

Behind him, down in a narrow space between the loads of cut lu slept