ches, each of a single colour, in every tint between deep
red and yellowish green, and so distinctly rectangular in form as
irresistibly to suggest the idea of artificial, if not human,
arrangement. But there were other features of the scene that dispelled
all doubt upon this point. Immediately to the south-eastward, and
about twenty miles from where I stood, a deep arm of the sea ran up
into the land, and upon the shores of this lay what was unquestionably
a city. It had nothing that looked like fortifications, and even at
this distance I could discern that its streets were of remarkable
width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches,
State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities. Their colours were most
various and brilliant, as if reflected from metallic surfaces; and on
the waters of the bay itself rode what I could not doubt to be ships
or rafts. More immediately beneath me, and scattered at intervals over
the entire plain, clustering more closely in the vicinity of the city,
were walled enclosures, and in the centre of each was what could
hardly be anything but a house, though not apparently more than twelve
or fourteen feet high, and covering a space sufficient for an European
or even American street or square. Upon the lower slopes of the hill
whereon I stood were moving figures, which, seen through the
binocular, proved to be animals; probably domestic animals, since they
never ranged very far, and presented none of those signs of
watchfulness and alarm which are peculiar to creatures not protected
by man from their less destructive enemies, and taught to lay aside
their dread of man himself. I had descended, then, not only into an
inhabited world--not only into a world of men, who, however they might
differ in outward form, must resemble in their wants, ideas, and
habits, in short, in mind if not in body, the lords of my own
planet--but into a civilised world and among a race living under a
settled order, cultivating the soil, and taming the brutes to their
service.

And now, as I came on lower ground, I found at each step new objects
of curiosity and interest. A tree with dark-yellowish leaves, taller
than most timber trees on Earth, bore at the end of drooping twigs
large dark-red fruits--fruits with a rind something like that of a
pomegranate, save for the colour and hardness, and about the size of a
shaddock or melon. One of these, just within reach of my hand, I
gathered, but found it impos