rating day and night, and then hover over
the planet at that point, allowing it to turn beneath us so that, as
we looked down, we should see in succession the entire circuit of the
globe of Mars while it rolled under our eyes.

The rotation of Mars on its axis is performed in a period very little
longer than that of the earth's rotation, so that the length of the day
and night in the world of Mars is only some forty minutes longer than
their length upon the earth.

In thus remaining suspended over the planet, on the line of daybreak, so
to speak, we believed that we should be peculiarly safe from detection
by the eyes of the inhabitants. Even astronomers are not likely to be
wide awake just at the peep of dawn. Almost all of the inhabitants,
we confidently believed, would still be sound asleep upon that part of
the planet passing directly beneath us, and those who were awake would
not be likely to watch for unexpected appearances in the sky.

Besides, our height was so great that notwithstanding the numbers of the
squadron, we could not easily be seen from the surface of the planet,
and if seen at all we might be mistaken for high-flying birds.

Mars Passes Below Us.

Here we remained then through the entire course of twenty-four hours and
saw in succession as they passed from night into day beneath our feet
the land of Chryse, the great continent of Tharsis, the curious region of
intersecting canals which puzzled astronomers on the earth had named the
"Gordian Knot," the continental lands of Memnonia, Amazonia and Aeolia,
the mysterious centre where hundreds of vast canals came together from
every direction, called the Trivium Charontis; the vast circle of Elysium,
a thousand miles across, and completely surrounded by a broad green canal;
the continent of Libya, which, as I remembered, had been half covered
by a tremendous inundation whose effects were visible from the earth
in the year 1889, and finally the long, dark sea of the Syrtis Major,
lying directly south of the land of Hellas.

The excitement and interest which we all experienced were so great that
not one of us took a wink of sleep during the entire twenty-four hours
of our marvellous watch.

There are one or two things of special interest amid the multitude of
wonderful observations that we made which I must mention here on account
of their connection with the important events that followed soon after.

Just west of the land of Chryse we saw the s