A river wound on the near side of the city, crossed by a white bridge.

The city lay close clustered, ruddy on the plains, glittering in the clear air with its flat roofs and domes and square towers, strangely naked-seeming in the clear, clean air.

And massive in the further nearness, snow-streaked mountains, the tiger-like Alps.

Tigers prowling between the north and the south.

And this beautiful city lying nearest exposed.