Which detail from the text best establishes the
influence of religion on this setting?
Which detail most effectively creates an atmosphere of
danger?
Toward the setting of the eighth sun, I came to the banks
of the great river. It was half-a-day's journey after I had
left the god-road-we do not use the god-roads now for
they are falling apart into great blocks of stone, and the
forest is safer going. A long way off, I had seen the water
through trees but the trees were thick. At last, I came out
upon an open place at the top of a cliff. There was the
great river below, like a giant in the sun. It is very long,
very wide. It could eat all the streams we know and still
be thirsty. Its name is Ou-dis-sun, the Sacred, the Long.
No man of my tribe had seen it, not even my father, the
priest. It was magic and I prayed.
Then I raised my eyes and looked south. It was there, the
Place of the Gods.
-"By the Waters of Babylon,"
Stephen Vincent Benet
