midday
It is a happy omen . '' When they had rested and dried their clothes they marched on with a certain sense of relief . There before them was the goal they had travelled so far to win ; soon they would know the worst that could befall , and anything was better than this long suspense . By midday they had covered about fifteen miles of ground , and could now see the city clearly . It was a great town , surrounded by a Cyclopean wall of boulders , about which the river ran on every side , forming a natural moat . The buildings within the wall seemed to be arranged in streets , and to be build on a plan similar to that of the house in which they had slept two nights before , the vast conglomeration of grass-covered roofs giving the city the appearance of a broken field of turf hillocks supported upon walls of stone . For the rest the place was laid out upon a slope , and at its head , immediately beneath the sheer steps of the mountain side stood two edifices very much larger in size than any of those below .