midday
The elephant , the cages of wild beasts , the horses , the towering chariots , the amazing pole wagons -- all slipped down the road and over the hill , strange , unusual objects that came but once a year and seemed to leave the countryside smaller and more narrow than it had been before . Hunched-up drivers , sleepily handling a half-dozen reins , looked neither to right nor left , but swore mechanically for the benefit of the tired horses , and without compunction in the presence of roadside spectators , male or female . Wet , sour , unfriendly minions were they , but they sent up no lamentations ; their lives may have been hard and unpromising , but lightly in their hearts swam the blissful conviction that they were superior to the envious yokels who gaped at them from fence corners and barnyards since the first dreary streak of dawn crept into the skies . A shadowy , ungainly , mysterious caravan of secrets , cherished but unblest , it straggled through the dawn , resolute in its promise of splendor at midday . Wild beasts were abroad in the land , and mighty serpents , too ; but they slept and were scorned by the men who slumbered above or below them . The country people looked on and wondered , and shuddered at the thought of the terrific creatures at their very door-yards . Then they hitched up their teams and flocked to town in the wake of the peril , there to marvel and delight in the very things that had awed them in their own province .