22. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 687-732

Two: America, 71-73; Three: Last Transit, 74

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The surveying done, they turn to putting things on paper, including the map-making, which is Dixon's job. When he's done with that, "Mason eagerly rushes to inspect the Map of the Boundaries, almost instantly boggling, for there bold as a Pirate's Flag is an eight-pointed Star, surmounted by a Fleur-de-Lis," the symbol of, as Mason puts it, "England's most inveterately hated Rival ... France." But Dixon explains that "A Surveyor's North-Point, ... by long Tradition, is his own, which he may draw, and embellish, in any way he pleases, so it point where North by." This is his own, "his Hall-Mark," "an ancient Shape." Mason is concerned that "some, finding it upon a new Map, might also take it as a reassertion of French claims to Ohio." And though they bicker as usual for a while,

Mason is able to inspect the long Map, fragrant, elegantly cartouch'd with Indians and Instruments, at last. Ev'ry place they ran it, ev'ry House pass'd by, Road cross'd, the Ridge-lines and Creeks, Forests and Glades, Water ev'rywhere, and the Dragon nearly visible.... "This is beauteous Work. Emerson was right, Jeremiah. You were flying all the time."

But they still have some survey work to do in "the cheerless Bogs of Delaware," which takes them almost another year. Zhang still hangs around complaining about sha. And at one point Dixon reflects on what all their travels together have in common: "Slaves. Ev'ry day at the Cape, we lived with Slavery in our faces, -- more of it at St. Helena, -- and now here we are again, in another Colony, this time having drawn them a Line between their Slave-Keepers, and their Wage-Payers, as if doom'd to re-encounter thro' the World this public secret, this shameful Core."

At the end of June, when they finish their measuring, they go south to Baltimore, "and the moment when Dixon will accost the Slave-Driver in the Street, and originate the family story whose material Focus, for years among the bric-a-brac in Hull, will be the Driver's Lash, that Uncle Jeremiah took away from the Scoundrel." It is an act that earns Mason's often-withheld admiration. And it brings into focus another theme of the novel:

Having acknowledg'd at the Warpath the Justice of the Indians' Desires, after the two deaths, Mason and Dixon understand as well that the Line is exactly what Capt. Zhang and a number of others have been styling it all along -- a conduit for Evil. 

One night, as he is walking along the Visto, Mason sees Rebekah's ghost, urging him to "come back to our Vale.... You must leave Mr. Dixon to his Fate, and attend your own.... You ... must go back inside the House of your Duty. When you come out again, he will no longer be there, and the Dark will be falling." On Sept. 11, 1768, they sail for England.

There follows a fantasy about Mason and Dixon journeying together, westward beyond the Ohio. "Betwixt themselves, neither feels British enough anymore, nor quite American, for either Side of the Ocean. They are content to reside like Ferrymen or Bridge-keepers, ever in a Ubiquity of Flow, before a ceaseless Spectacle of Transition."

But in fact, they return to England and a meeting of the Royal Society Council in December 1768. The next transit of Venus is ahead, and the records of the meeting show that Dixon says he's "willing to go to the North Cape or Cherry Island; Mr Mason rather declined going; but added, that if he was wanted, he should be ready to go." As they leave the meeting, they are pursued by "Some horrible Boswell," who points out, "neither of you has been voted to membership in the Royal Society. Mr. Mason, we've heard you're the one here who's unhappy with that, whilst Mr. Dixon takes the more philosophickal View." Dixon replies, "Only the long view, Lad."

The truth is that Mason is feeling guilty about leaving his family, and especially about his father's criticism. "So he declines the North Cape, and another posting together, symmetrically as ever, to that end of the world lying opposite their first end of the World. 'Someone must break this damn'd Symmetry,' Mason mutters." He goes to observe the transit in South Ulster instead, but sees only "the ingress of Venus upon the Disk of the Sun, but not her departure." Ireland reminds him of America, "frontier Country," and he has a bad dream of Rebekah.

He returns with his report to Maskelyne, who annoys him with the alterations he has made to the office that used to belong to Mason's patron, Bradley, and his flaunting of his relationship to Clive of India. Maskelyne is also suspected of having used his position as Royal Astronomer to have his method of measuring longitude accepted over the more accurate method using John Harrison's chronometer. Cherrycoke comments to his audience, however, that Maskelyne "did what he could to support Mason's claim to Prize money from the Board of Longitude for his Refinements to Mayer's Lunar Tables, whilst seeking none for himself."  In the end, Mason accepts a commission from Maskelyne to go to Scotland, and to visit Dixon along the way. 

20. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 623-658

Two: America; 64-67

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Zhang tells the story of Hsi and Ho, who failed to predict a solar eclipse, putting them in danger of execution: "We made the Emperor look bad. As a Child of Heaven, he's supposed to know all about these Wonders in advance." They escape from the palace on a giant kite and crash-land into a pond, where they attract the attention of the daughters of Lord Huang. He hires them as his astronomers, but once again they neglect their duties -- distracted by Huang's daughters -- and miscalculate the time of an eclipse, leaving Huang exposed to his enemies in a battle. The story, Zhang says, has alternate endings: In one, Huang wins the battle after all, and banishes Hsi and Ho to the desert where they live out their lives as holy beggars. In the other, Huang is killed and the astronomers "take over Huang's Lands, Fortune, Army, and Harem of Daughters."

In December they return to the Harlands'. "No telling if they'll ever take the line west of Allegheny. All is in the hands of Sir William Johnson" and his administration of the Indian territories. They spend Christmas discussing the star of Bethlehem, with Dixon opining, "'Twas either a Conjunction of Planets ... or a Comet," and Mason asserting, "In seven B.C., according to Kepler, Jupiter and Saturn were conjunct three times, -- and the next year, Mars join'd them.... No one who was out at night could have fail'd to notice that. It must have been the most spectacular Event in the Sky." Zhang points out that Halley's comet appeared in 12 B.C. But Cherrycoke protests to both theories that "Christ was not born any time Before Christ." Zhang further complicates matters:

"If," says the Geomancer, "like all Christian nations, you accept the reckoning of Dionysius Exiguus, -- then, Herod died in four B.C., -- yet the Gospels have him alive when Christ was born, -- the taxation that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem may've been as early as eight B.C. There are a number of these ... strange inconsistencies."

This is too much for Cherrycoke to swallow. Dionysius, he says, translating the name as "Dennis the Meager," "was an agent of God." Whereupon Dixon mutters, imitating Mason's voice, "God should've found another Agent," shocking Cherrycoke. "'I didn't say that,' Mason protests, '-- Did I?'"

In the spring, Mason and Dixon begin hearing voices: "the great Ghost of the woods has been whispering to them, -- tho' Reason suggests the Wind, -- 'No ... no more ... no further.'" Dixon jokes, "Reminds me of a Lass from Escombe." But one day, "Mason and Dixon hear the Voice, stirring the tops of Trees in a black swift Smear down the Mountainside and into the Shade, more to plead than to pronounce, -- 'You are gone too far, from the Post Mark'd West.' ... 'Thankee,' Mason mutters back to it, 'as if we didn't already know.'"

The Implication of the ghostly Speech is clear to them both, -- They will soon be proceeding, if indeed they are not already, with all Guarantees of Safety suspended, -- as if Whatever spar'd them years ago, at Sea, were now presenting its Bill.

"Be they heedful or not, 1767 will be their last year upon the Line." They wait in Philadelphia for word from Sir William Johnson, who is negotiating with the Indians, so "they get a late start this Year, not reaching the Allegheny Front until July, a full year since they left off their Progress West." They visit the Redzingers on the way, reuniting with Zhang, who informs them that his nemesis, Zarpazo, is no longer a threat: He has gone to Florida. Allègre visits them, too, and tells them "I see the Duck seldom of late. Perhaps, by now, she has taken in her charge so many other Souls as troubl'd as my own, that there remains less time for me, -- perhaps, as she has continu'd upon her way, I have even pass'd altogether from her Car."

At Cumberland, they meet settlers with a pack of hunting dogs, and Mason endeavors to find out from one of the dogs, Snake, about an old acquaintance: "I'm assuming that Norfolk Terriers, like other breeds, maintain a Web of Communication about 'em, and I was but curious after the whereabouts these Days of the Learnèd English Dog, or as I believe he is also known, Fang." But Snake is wary of letting people know of "his own Power of Speech, for he's known others, including the credulous Fang in fact, who've trusted Humans with the Secret only to find themselves that very Evening in some Assembly Room full of Smoke and Noise, and no promise of Dinner till after they've perform'd."

A delegation of Indians, sent by Johnson along with an interpreter, Hugh Crawfford, arrives. They "will remain with the Party till the end of October, when, reaching a certain Warrior Path, they will inform the Astronomers that their own Commissions from the Six Nations allow them to go no further, -- with its implied Corollary, that this Path is as far West as the Party, the Visto, and the Line, may proceed." Crawfford informs them that the Great Warrior Path is "one of the major High-ways of all inland America. So must it also stand as a boundary line, -- for when we come to it, we shall not be allow'd to cross it, and go on." Mason protests that it will only take a quarter of an hour to cross and and they'll clean up after themselves. "Cutting it with your Visto would be like putting an earthen Dam across a River," Crawfford insists. He tells them that it's thirty or forty miles from Ohio, but "although on paper it may look like only a few short steps from the Warpath to the River Ohio, I beg you both, be most careful, -- for Distance is not the same here, nor is Time."

The Indians, and their ability to slip into and out of the forest, unnerve Mason. Cherrycoke observes, "Mr. Dixon seems quite content in their company," which prompts Mason to respond,

"Who, Young Jollification? drinks with priests, roisters with Pygmies, -- aye, I've seen that. What cares he, as long as the Tobacco and spirits hold out? ... No, -- 'tis I who am anxious before the advent of these Visitors how Strange, who belong so without separation, to this Country cryptick and perilous, ... passing, tho' never so close, as shadowy and serene as Deities of Forest or River." 

When the instruments are shown to them, the Indians "explain, that for as long as anyone can remember, the Iroquois Nations as well, have observ'd Meridian Lines as Boundaries to separate the one from another." This amazes Zhang, who of course opposes such lines, until he learns that the Jesuits taught them to do so. But an Indian chief named Hendricks says, "Others believe 'twas not the Jesuits, but powerful Strangers, much earlier."

The chapter ends with yet another tall tale, this one about giant vegetables.

19. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 597-622

Two: America; 61-63

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Capt. Shelby leads them to a mound that he insists must be seen at sunrise. Dixon is surprised to find that it is "a great Cone!" There is an entrance to the mound, which Shelby surmises was made by someone mistaking it for a pyramid and hoping to loot it, but there's nothing inside, "for Indians never built it." They find that it is made of layers of what Mason says "seem but different kinds of Refuse, -- dirt, ashes, crush'd seashells." Dixon says that things constructed with "alternating Layers of different Substances are ever a Sign of the intention to Accumulate Force, not necessarily Electrical, [but] suited to Forces more Tellurick in nature, more attun'd, that is, to Death and the slower Phenomena." Mason shakes his head dubiously. Dixon produces his compass, whose "Needle is swinging wildly and without pause, rocking about like a Weather-Vane, Dixon pretending to gaze at it knowingly."

Shelby informs them that the mound is "quite in the projected path of your Line" ad that when the "Visto" reaches that point "the Mound will become active, as an important staging-house, for ... whatever it may be." He also claims that the mound is "Welsh in origin."

The Cymry, Capt. Shelby explains, having first come to Britain from far to the East, -- some say Babylon, some Nineveh, -- their Fate ever to be Westering, -- America but one of their dwelling-places, the Ocean nearly irrelevant.

At the top of a hill, he points out "what seems to be the Ruin of a Wall," with a stone on which are some markings that he claims to be ogham. Asked what the markings say, he replies, "Well ... as nearly as I can make out, -- 'Astronomers Beware, Surveyors too. This means you.'" 

Back at camp, they fall into a discussion of the mystical, magnetic and telluric powers of the Line and the Visto, with Zhang persisting in his insistence that they invite Sha and on his belief that the planet itself is a living thing.

"Exactly as the creatures Microscopic upon your skin believe you to be a Planet. They may be arguing even now about whether or not you are a form of Life. Each time you step into a Tub, there comes upon them another universal Flood, with its Animalcular Noah, and another Reinhabiting, another Chain of Generations, to them how timeless, till the next Wash." 

Dixon wonders why "that Bottle isn't moving more briskly." But then he proceeds to twit Mason, as Mason had earlier done with his tale about being trapped in the missing eleven days, with his theory that the Earth is hollow. "Dixon on now like a tree-ful of ravens, with his Hollow Earth, an enthusiasm, Mason judges, too developed to be argued away without investing more time and patience than he possesses." Zhang joins in with the theory that China was once another planet, "embedded into the Earth thro' some very slow collision." When Dixon asks if the Jesuits believe this, Zhang replies, "Zarpazo does," and "beams and nods as if Dixon has just understood a Joke."

Captain Shelby foments another mystery, by asking "Where is the Third Surveyor?" The question puzzles Mason and Dixon, until Shelby proclaims, "you are Wise Men from the East, -- and ev'ryone knows they come in Threes!" The joke is laughed at, "Yet reported sightings of the Supernumerary Figure now begin to drift in. He is seen often in the Company of an Animal that most describe as a Dog, though a few are not so sure, for its Eyes glow as if all the Creature's Interior be a miniature of Hell."

On April 22 it snows, and as they sit around trying to warm themselves after a snowball fight, Dixon tells about his dream "of a City to the West of here, ... at some great Confluence of Rivers, or upon a Harbor in some inland Sea, -- a large City, -- busy, prosperous, sacred." But Mason insists that "Philadelphia is as sacred as anything over here will ever get." As they move west, away from civilization, they encounter more of "those Forces, which Cities upon Coasts have learn'd to push away, and leave to Back Inhabitants, -- the Lightning, the Winter, an Indifference to Pain, not to mention Fire, Blood, and so forth.... We trespass, each day ever more deeply, into a world of less restraint in ev'rything." He sees the western city Dixon has dreamed as "an Anti-City, -- some concentration of Fate, -- some final condition of Abandonment, -- wherein all are unredeemably alone and at Hazard as deep as their souls may bear."

Dixon scoffs at Mason's response to his dream, and says he knows that the dreams Mason has just before he awakes are good ones because he has listened to Mason talking in his sleep, though he doesn't understand the language Mason is speaking. Mason is appalled:  "I'm talking, another Language, in my Sleep, -- Dixon?" When Dixon shrugs this off, Mason says, "somebody else's soul, possessing my body, whilst I sleep, -- that's what it's about!" Dixon suggests that he have Zhang listen in to see if he can understand what Mason is saying, but Mason protests, "Too intimate." Dixon replies that "Half the Camp hears it. Some take it for Indians. Axmen say, if so, 'tis a Nation they have not yet encounter'd."

Then one of the men, known as Light-Fingers McFee, is caught meddling in the sea-chest of the Swedish axman, Stig. McFee responds by showing what he found: "an un-roll'd Sheet of Parchment cover'd with elaborate Seals and antiquated writing in some other Language, possibly Swedish." He runs away, pursued by Stig, until Capt. Shelby's co-officer, Joseph Warford, rounds them both up and asks about "the mysterious Parchment." Stig says it's in Latin, and that he is "here on behalf of certain Principals in Sweden, who believe that the Penns, being secretly creatures of Rome, took illegally the original Svånssen land 'pon which Philadelphia would later come to sit, -- and thus that the whole Metropolis has never ceas'd to belong, rightfully, to Sweden." Stig goes on to assert that he's not really Swedish,that his "people are of the North, Northern, and very White, so white in fact that you British to us appear as do Africans, to you." And that his people learn "to impersonate Swedes, -- fr our Nation much prefer to remain unmolested."

Settlements begin to thin out as they move further west, and when they complete another ten-mile segment, they turn east so the axmen can widen the Visto. Mason tells Zhang, "this unremitting Forest, -- it disturbs me. Far, far too many trees."

"Consider," replies the Geomancer, " -- Adam and Eve ate fruit from a Tree, and were enlighten'd. The Buddha sat beneath a Tree, and he was enlighten'd. Newton, also sitting beneath a Tree, was hit by a falling Apple, -- and he was enlighten'd. A quick overview would suggest that Trees produce Enlightenment. Trees are not the Problem. The Forest is not an Agent of Darkness. But it may be your Visto is.... Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People, -- to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em, -- 'tis the first stroke, -- All esle will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and Devastation." 

Mason objects that the provinces being separated are too much alike to provoke conflict. "'Except for the Negro Slavery upon one side,' Dixon points out, less mildly than he might, 'and not the other.'"

On June 14 they reach the Allegheny Divide, the point at which rivers begin to run west. And they encounter a group of frontiersmen, "holding long Rifles with octagonal barrels, and packing a Pistol or two each. Even the horses are glaring, all but carnivorously, at the Party." But they are mollified by the offer of any of the timber being felled and by the possibility of joining the team chopping down the trees. And soon the party encounters Zepho Beck who, when the moon is full, turns into a were-beaver, chopping down trees with his teeth. "'Kastoranthropy,' Professor Voam shaking his head. "And haven't I seen it do things to a man. Tragick.'" Zapho's wife, Rhodie, agrees. "I love him, but Zepho's no Carpenter."

But she has an idea: She'll wager that Zepho can fell more trees than "that Swedish Axman Stig." But once the full moon has risen on August 5, something happens: "Mason looks at Dixon. Dixon looks at Mason. 'The Eclipse!' both cry at the same time. They have only now remember'd the Eclipse of the Moon, due to start later tonight. Zepho is 'morposing back to Human, and not enjoying it much."

Rhodie has some consolation: "There is a promising Lawsuit in this, if we can prove those Astronomers knew about it in advance." Mason and Dixon both vow innocence. But the incident reminds Zhang of a story....

18. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 554-596

Two: America; 56-60

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In his field journal, Mason notes that "Cycles, or if you like, Segments of eleven Days recur again and again," which he ascribes to "the famous Eleven Missing Days of the Calendar Reform of '52." And to Dixon he tells a fantastic tale about being caught up in a time vortex, "finding myself in September third, 1752, a date that for all the rest of England, did not exist."

During their winter break, Dixon and Mason swap the direction they took on their previous break, Dixon going north to New York, where he encounters the same crew that abducted Mason on the last trip, this time more open about their revolutionary activities. In fact, he meets them "at Montagne's Tavern, upon Broad-Way, near Murray Street, which proves to be Head-quarters of the local Sons of Liberty, as well as thick with Intrigue, regardless of the Hour." He also meets up with some who figured earlier in the novel: "Foretopman Bodine, once of the Seahorse," and Philip Dimdown, who is no longer a fop but now "a serious young man upon a Mission whose end may not be predicted." Dixon is questioned by Dimdown as to his sympathies as a Quaker toward the Americans' impending struggle for independence.

"''Tis not how British treat Americans,' Dixon amiably rubescent, ''tis how both of You treat the American Slaves, and the Indians Native here, that engages the Friends more closely, -- an old and melancholy History.... My allegiance, as a Quaker born, would lie, above all, with Christ, -- withal, as a Geordie, for reasons unarguably Tribal, I can have no sympathy for any British King, -- not even one who's paid my wages, bless 'im.'" 

Mason's journey southward takes him to Williamsburg, while along the way he finds an equivalent nascent rebelliousness. In Williamsburg he is invited to play billiards with Col. Washington. The tavern is filled with smoke, and Mason and Washington overhear an argument over someone's use of the word "nigger," in which Washington is surprised to hear the voice of Gershom. "Half the Company seem to believe this is a white Customer, impersonating an African. Others, having caught Gershom's act before, recognize him right away." They began asking him for particular jokes they've heard him tell.

Then Mason recognizes another voice in the crowd, that of "Baby-Phiz Nathe McClean, or I'm a Sailor." McClean has returned to his studies at William and Mary. He tells Mason that he left the surveying party "just in time.... I should have been crazy as Captain Zhang, had I remained a week more." But he also says that "the Captain wasn't just Pipe-Smoaking in the Article of that Sha. We all felt it, as, to Appearance, did you and Mr. Dixon. Surveying a Property Line, that may be one thing, -- clearing and marking a Right Line of an Hundred Leagues, into the Lands of Others, cannot be a kindly Act."

At the end of March, the surveyors go back to work, where they find an uproar over "the great Scandal over the winter involving Tom Hynes, Catherine Wheat, and their Baby." The story of the scandal, which takes up a chapter, owes as much to Mark Twain as it does to the 18th-century novelists like Smollett and Sterne who inform the rest of Pynchon's novel.

Returning to work, Dixon encounters a suspicion that the surveyors may be spies by saying, "'Tis a gormless Spy indeed, who'd lurk where there are no more Secrets to steal. ... What is there that has not been visited, intentionally and not, an hundred times?" Captain Shelby, with whom they left the instruments for the winter, observes that "There is a love of complexity, here in America, ... pur Space waits the Surveyor, -- no previous Lines, no fences, no streets to constrain polygony however extravagant."

Dixon begins trying to learn how to use Zhang's luopan, and notes that Britain is in "the Terrestrial Sign of Draco, the Dragon." But he explains to Zhang that where he comes from, in Durham, dragons "are not at all the Chinese Variety. Some, like the Lambton Worm, lacking Wings and a fire-breathing Capacity, may indeed be of a distinct Species." And he proceeds to tell his version of the legend of the Lambton Worm. Afterward, Captain Shelby alludes to a serpentine mound on the other side of the Ohio which the Indians claim predate their inhabiting the region. He proposes that they investigate some mounds nearer to where they are.

17. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 525-553

Two: America; 54-55

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The narrative abruptly shifts to first person, as our abductee tells us that one evening she was "taken to a Chamber, and there laced into an expensive Corset," her face was "painted ... into a wanton Sister of itself,"... and she was given "undergarments ... that might, Blondelle assur'd me, make a French whore think twice." She is to be taken to "the Chinaman."

If this sounds like porn, it is. Tenebrae "has discover'd the sinister Volume in 'Thelmer's Room, lying open to a Copper-plate Engraving of two pretty Nuns, sporting in ways she finds inexplicably intriguing." Ethelmer claims the book, which is "the next in the Ghastly Fop series," is "something of Cousin DePugh's." She wonders that "a young University Gentleman should find Affection between Women at all a topic of interest." He gives her a synopsis of the series featuring the Ghastly Fop, who to some "seems quite conventionally alive, whilst others swear he is a Ghost.... The Series runs to at least a Dozen Volumes by now, tho' no one is sure exactly how many, -- forgeries have also found their way into the Market." Ethelmer tells Tenebrae that he has read as far as "where she meets the Chinese Boy, and they plan their Escape." He says he will read the next chapter to her. "And so off they minuet, to become detour'd from the Revd's narrative Turnpike onto the pleasant Track of their own mutual Fascinations, by way of the Captive's Tale." 

The tale resumes with the captive's account of a dream, and then shifts to third person as the Wolf of Jesus realizes that the "Chinaman," Zhang, whom he has paired with the captive is fluent in Spanish. Moreover, Zhang is now preparing to escape from the Jesuits and the captive "understands when he will leave, and in the instant decides to go with him." She disguises herself as a boy, and they make their escape. He has with him a "miraculous Luo-Pan," a magnetic compass used in feng shui. They make their way to the home of Sir William Johnson, who recognizes Zhang after he "presents him a curious sort of Metallick Plate" and they "exchange a complicated Hand-shake." She reveals herself to be Eliza Fields of Conestoga.

Ethelmer proposes to skip a page of erotic stuff about Eliza and Zhang, but Tenebrae has already read ahead. Eliza and Zhang journey on, and at this point the fiction of the Ghastly Fop joins up with the narrative of the Mason-Dixon expedition: "they arrive at the West Line, and decide to follow the Visto [the line blazed by the axmen] east, and ere long they have come up with the Party." Zhang asks if she plans to return to her husband. "'Either to the Jesuits, or to him? -- That's my full list of Choices? ...' She twirls her Nose in the air, and departs."

Eliza bunks with one of the camp-followers, Zsuzsa Szabó, who does a show involving "Accordion musick, Dog tricks and Gypsy Dancing" with a machine that recreates the Battle of Leuthen. The surveyors meet Eliza in the tent, Dixon quite taken with the "Deerskin Costume" that she wears, and Mason stunned to discover in her a likeness, indeed a "Point-for-Point Representation," of his late wife. Both Mason and Eliza consult the chaplain of the party, which is Cherrycoke, who "speculates that the Resemblance so confounding Mason is less likely the Transmigration of a Soul, than the Resurrection of a Body, -- enough of its Particulars to convince him 'tis she." Mason is tormented by dreams of Rebekah, and one day concludes that since Eliza's hair has grown back in, she no longer looks like her that much.  Eliza tells him that she and Zsuzsa have decided "to go off and be Adventuresses," and if he passes near Conestoga to listen for the sounds of merriment that will reveal how much her husband, Seth, misses her.

Zhang, meanwhile, is criticizing the survey itself: "Terrible Feng-Shui here. Worst I ever saw. You two crazy?" He means that the straight line, the Visto, "acts as a Conduit for what we call Sha, or, as they say in Spanish California, Bad Energy. -- Imagine a Wind, a truly ill wind, bringing failure, poverty, disgrace, betrayal, -- every kind of bad luck there is, -- all blowing through, night and day, with many times the force of the worst storm you were ever in." Boundaries, he says, should "follow Nature, -- coast-lines, ridge-tops, river-banks, -- so honoring the Dragon or Shan within, from which Land-Scape ever takes its form." He is surprised that a people so given to religion as the settlers in America should allow it.

He tells them of his enemy, the Wolf of Jesus, Father Zarpazo, who is "sworn to destroy all who seek God without passing through the toll-gate of Jesus." Under his direction, they have particularly targeted practitioners of feng shui. Dixon is fascinated by Zhang's luopan, recognizing a fellow "Needle man." When he mentions that Mason is frustrated by the fact that the compass "never points to what he calls True North," Zhang says that Zarpazo is too. "The Impurity of this Earth keeps him driven in a holy Rage, -- Which is why he wants this Visto." He explains that the Visto will draw Zarpazo to it because "Purity of Azimuth is his Passion."

Dixon is puzzled that Zhang should be so opposed to their mission, but he reassures him that "my business is with the Jesuit. We happen to be the principal Personae here, not you two! Nor has your Line any Primacy in this, being rather a Stage-Setting, dark and fearful as the Battlements of Elsinore, for the struggle Zarpazo and I must enact upon the very mortal Edge of this great Torrent of Sha." But so obsessed is Zhang with the struggle against Zarpazo that he has become paranoid, convinced that Zarpazo, "a master of disguise, ... has actually penetrated the Camp, and only waits his moment to administer that poison'd Stiletto preferr'd by a Jesuit confronting Error." His suspicions also include Dixon because "'Tis widely assum'd that you are here on behalf of the Jesuit Le Maire." The Jesuits, he claims, want to "tap into the unremitting torrent of Sha roaring all night and all day, and convert it to their own uses."

Mr. Everybeet, the mineralogist, notes that "west of here, in the Hills 'round Cheat and Monongahela, are secret Lead Mines, which the Indians guard jealously." And that "who controls Lead controls the supply of Ammunition."

Mason and Dixon conclude that Zhang is "a few Links short of a Chain," especially when he begins transforming himself into the image of his adversary, Zarpazo. He wears black robes and begins to grow a small beard, and "Spanish phrases increasingly creep into his Conversation." Mason suggests that there might be trouble if Zhang's presence attracts Zarpazo and that Dixon is the only one who can get rid of him: "He already thinks you're a Jesuit Agent. All you have to do is advise him to stay, and he'll do the opposite." But Zhang claims to have an amulet against the Jesuit that will protect the expedition: "a dark Red sphere about the size of a Cherry" that he claims is a cyst that once grew in the brain of a cobra. "Therefore fear not the Advent of the Wolf, for here is the soul of the Cobra, yet living, yet potent." When Zhang displays it, "'I'll buy one!' Dixon cries. Mason looks upward, patiently."