,
not of a uniform red tint, but presenting an immense variety of shades
which produced a most brilliant effect, fairly dazzling our eyes.

But what trees! And what grass! And what flowers!

Our telescopes showed that even the smaller trees must be 200 or 300
feet in height, and there were forests of giants, whose average height
was evidently at least 1,000 feet.

"That's all right," exclaimed the enthusiast I have just quoted. "I knew
it would be so. The trees are big for the same reason that the men are,
because the planet is small, and they can grow big without becoming too
heavy to stand."

Flashing in the sun on all sides were the roofs of metallic buildings,
which were evidently the only kind of edifices which Mars possessed. At
any rate, if stone or wood were employed in their construction both were
completely covered with metallic plates.

This added immensely to the warlike aspect of the planet. For warlike it
was. Everywhere we recognized fortified stations, glittering with an
array of the polished knobs of the lightning machines, such as we had
seen in the land of Hellas.

From the land of Edom, directly over the equator of the planet, we
turned our faces westward, and, skirting the Mare Erytraeum, arrived
above the place where the broad canal known as the Indus empties into
the sea.

Before us, and stretching away to the northwest, now lay the Continent
of Chryse, a vast red land, oval in outline, and surrounded and crossed
by innumerable canals. Chryse was not less than 1,600 miles across and
it, too, evidently swarmed with giant inhabitants.

But the shadow of night lay upon the greater portion of the land of
Chryse. In our rapid motion westward we had outstripped the sun and had
now arrived at a point where day and night met upon the surface of the
planet beneath us.

Behind all was brilliant with sunshine, but before us the face of Mars
gradually disappeared in the deepening gloom. Through the darkness, far
away, we could behold magnificent beams of electric light darting across
the curtain of night, and evidently serving to illuminate towns and
cities that lay beneath.

We pushed on into the night for two or three hundred miles over that
part of the continent of Chryse whose inhabitants were doubtless
enjoying the deep sleep that accompanies the dark hours immediately
preceding the dawn. Still everywhere splendid clusters of light lay like
fallen constellations upon the ground, indicating t