There are also three large lakes
-- the biggest, namely that whereon we emerged, and which is
named Milosis after the city, covering some two hundred square
miles of country -- and numerous small ones, some of them salt.
The population of this favoured land is, comparatively speaking,
dense, numbering at a rough estimate from ten to twelve millions.
It is almost purely agricultural in its habits, and divided
into great classes as in civilized countries. There is a territorial
nobility, a considerable middle class, formed principally of
merchants, officers of the army, etc.; but the great bulk of
the people are well-to-do peasants who live upon the lands of
the lords, from whom they hold under a species of feudal tenure.
The best bred people in the country are, as I think I have said,
pure whites with a somewhat southern cast of countenance; but
the common herd are much darker, though they do not show any
negro or other African characteristics. As to their descent
I can give no certain information. Their written records, which
extend back for about a thousand years, give no hint of it.
One very ancient chronicler does indeed, in alluding to some
old tradition that existed in his day, talk of it as having probably
originally 'come down with the people from the coast', but that
may mean little or nothing.
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