There came a day soon after this when Grace and Glory was led to the last of the nine Mountains of Spices, which was the Mountain of Aloes. This completed the whole circle of lovely peaks and brought her right back again to the edge of the Mountain of Pomegranates from which they had first started.

This last mountain was, she thought, in some ways the most beautiful of them all, although all nine were so fair and wonderful it was really difficult to favor one above the rest. Indeed, they all belonged together as the range of gardens in which the King grew his own wonderful spices.

The Mountain of Aloes and the Mountain of Pomegranates possessed one feature, however, which did distinguish them in a special way from the other mountains in the chain. Between them lay a very quiet valley through which flowed a river of crystal clear water. This valley was, as it were, the stairway up to the Very High Places above. The river flowed across the valley between the two mountains after descending in a waterfall from cliffs high up on the Mountain of Aloes. On the upper side of the quiet valley above the river was a path which led up and up and out of this world altogether, into the Upper Regions of the sky. At times some of the inhabitants of those Upper Regions came down to the further banks of the river in order to welcome across to the other side those of the King’s friends for whom the time for departure from the earth had come.

On this occasion, however, it was not to the quiet valley between the mountains that the King led Grace and Glory, but to the Mountain of Aloes itself.

Here grew the lign-aloe trees of Self-Control. They were very great trees, giants of strength and loveliness. Beside them even the tallest of forest trees appeared as dwarfs. Their trunks were of immense thickness; their branches spread out gloriously shading an area vast enough to shelter a cathedral. Also, they were magnificently proportioned and were crowned with a gracefully vaulted roof of foliage, so thick that not a drop of rain or hail could penetrate to the cool, shady depths beneath.

The trees did not grow close together but were widely spaced apart over the slopes of the mountain, each one rising like a noble and gracious temple, in the shadowy depths of which chanted a melodious choir of birds. The spice yielded by these mighty trees was obtained by stripping off the perfumed bark from the great trunks of the trees. The bark grew again so quickly that this “stripping” process could be repeated several times each year, and it always resulted in the further strengthening and growth of the trees.