minded myself of that little state of
Athens, with only twenty thousand free citizens, and which to this
day our mightiest nations regard as the supreme guide and model in all
departments of intellect. But then Athens permitted fierce rivalry and
perpetual change, and was certainly not happy. Rousing myself from the
reverie into which these reflections had plunged me, I brought back our
talk to the subjects connected with emigration.

"But," said I, "when, I suppose yearly, a certain number among you agree
to quit home and found a new community elsewhere, they must necessarily
be very few, and scarcely sufficient, even with the help of the machines
they take with them, to clear the ground, and build towns, and form a
civilised state with the comforts and luxuries in which they had been
reared."

"You mistake. All the tribes of the Vril-ya are in constant
communication with each other, and settle amongst themselves each
year what proportion of one community will unite with the emigrants of
another, so as to form a state of sufficient size; and the place for
emigration is agreed upon at least a year before, and pioneers sent from
each state to level rocks, and embank waters, and construct houses; so
that when the emigrants at last go, they find a city already made, and a
country around it at least partially cleared. Our hardy life as children
make us take cheerfully to travel and adventure. I mean to emigrate
myself when of age."

"Do the emigrants always select places hitherto uninhabited and barren?"

"As yet generally, because it is our rule never to destroy except
when necessary to our well-being. Of course, we cannot settle in lands
already occupied by the Vril-ya; and if we take the cultivated lands
of the other races of Ana, we must utterly destroy the previous
inhabitants. Sometimes, as it is, we take waste spots, and find that
a troublesome, quarrelsome race of Ana, especially if under the
administration of Koom-Posh or Glek-Nas, resents our vicinity, and picks
a quarrel with us; then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy
it: there is no coming to terms of peace with a race so idiotic that
it is always changing the form of government which represents it.
Koom-Posh," said the child, emphatically, "is bad enough, still it has
brains, though at the back of its head, and is not without a heart; but
in Glek-Nas the brain and heart of the creatures disappear, and they
become all jaws, claws, and belly." "