According to the _tale, more than ten thousand years ago, a _race of shepherd _people colonized the banks of the river Ai in a land called Mnar, forming the cities of Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron, _which rose to great intellectual and mercantile prowess. Craving more land, a group of these hardy people migrated to the shores of a _lonely and vast lake at the heart of Mnar, _founding the metropolis of Sarnath.

There is in the land _of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream, and out _of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city _of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.

It is told that _in the immemorial years when the world was _young, before ever the men _of Sarnath came to the land _of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake; the gray stone city _of Ib, which was old as the lake itself, and peopled with beings not pleasing to behold. Very odd and ugly were these beings, as indeed are most beings _of a world yet inchoate and rudely fashioned. It is written on the brick cylinders _of Kadatheron that the beings _of Ib were in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it; that they had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice. It is also written that they descended one night from the moon in a mist; they and the vast still lake and gray stone city Ib. However this may be, it is certain that they worshipped a sea-green stone idol chiseled in the likeness _of Bokrug, the great water-lizard; before which they danced horribly when the moon was gibbous. And it is written in the papyrus _of Ilarnek, that they one day discovered fire, and thereafter kindled flames on many ceremonial occasions. But not much is written _of these beings, because they lived in very ancient times, and man is young, and knows but little _of the very ancient living things.

After many eons men came to the land _of Mnar, dark shepherd _folk with their fleecy flocks, who built Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron on the winding river Ai. And certain tribes, more hardy than the rest, pushed on to the border _of the lake and built Sarnath at a spot where precious metals were found in the earth.

Not far from the gray city _of Ib did the wandering tribes lay the first stones _of Sarnath, and at the beings _of Ib they marveled greatly. But with their marveling was mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings _of such aspect should walk about the world _of men at dusk. Nor did they like the strange sculptures upon the gray monoliths _of Ib, for why those sculptures lingered so late in the world, even until the coming men, none can