Note 168 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
It is probably, however, not quite fair to leave the reader, even for a time, under the impression that it is merely an excursion. Of all the huge and numerous loop-lines, backwaters, ramifications, reticulations, episodes, or whatever they may be called, there is hardly one which has not a real connection with the general plot; and the appearance of Thomyris here has such connection (as will be duly seen) in a capital and vital degree.