ted that the people should unite, march to the summit of the
hill, destroy the fastenings that held these curtains and, as the
coverings would fall, destroy them with fire. This leader declared that
they were entitled to sunlight and rain without paying tribute to man.
Gradually the workers were won to his views. The rich, seeing that their
investments were threatened, hired a few brilliant orators and sent
them to the people to persuade them not to give heed to a man of one
idea. These orators argued that it would be a great crime to destroy the
property of others, and that their only way of securing happiness was to
toil on with patience and keep looking for brighter days. The people
listened to the specious sophistries and thus pushed aside their
redeemer, putting off forever the day of their deliverance.

Similar troubles continued to arise in the valley, but the rich always
succeeded in quieting the people before they rose to determined action.

Then the rich decided to put an end to these agitations among the
toilers. Accordingly they cut off all communication from valley to
valley, either by epistle or person, and refused longer to permit any
poor toiler, or his children, to pursue any study whatever. By this
method, in the course of a few hundred years, the valley dwellers lapsed
into ignorant slaves, not knowing, except by tradition, that there were
other people in other parts of Mars. Thus the rich continued to
flourish on all the highlands, for they had extended this same policy
until the toilers of the whole planet were practically galley slaves,
each consigned to his own narrow canon.

After witnessing the wide extent of this slavery system, I appeared in
visible form to a rich dignitary on one of the most refined highlands.

He was alone and, upon raising his eyes and seeing me before him, he was
greatly amazed. To see a little man with a hairy face and with the kind
of clothing I wore, was all too odd for him to take in at once. He acted
as if I were some unheard-of animal, but when I addressed him in his own
tongue and manifested a becomingly meek disposition, he accepted me as a
deformed creature afflicted with a mild form of lunacy. Then he
proceeded to examine my clothing and especially my knees, trying to
solve by what freak of nature I was cursed since I had no lower arms
such as he had. My small face, smooth forehead, and the short straight
hair on my head aroused in him no little wonder and merr