ow under these disadvantagous circumstances we are
able to distinguish our friends from one another: but the answer to
this very natural question will be more fitly and easily given when I
come to describe the inhabitants of Flatland. For the present let me
defer this subject, and say a word or two about the climate and houses
in our country.

SECTION 2 Of the Climate and Houses in Flatland

As with you, so also with us, there are four points of the compass
North, South, East, and West.

There being no sun nor other heavenly bodies, it is impossible for us
to determine the North in the usual way; but we have a method of our
own. By a Law of Nature with us, there is a constant attraction to the
South; and, although in temperate climates this is very slight--so that
even a Woman in reasonable health can journey several furlongs
northward without much difficulty--yet the hampering effort of the
southward attraction is quite sufficient to serve as a compass in most
parts of our earth. Moreover, the rain (which falls at stated
intervals) coming always from the North, is an additional assistance;
and in the towns we have the guidance of the houses, which of course
have their side-walls running for the most part North and South, so
that the roofs may keep off the rain from the North. In the country,
where there are no houses, the trunks of the trees serve as some sort
of guide. Altogether, we have not so much difficulty as might be
expected in determining our bearings.

Yet in our more temperate regions, in which the southward attraction is
hardly felt, walking sometimes in a perfectly desolate plain where
there have been no houses nor trees to guide me, I have been
occasionally compelled to remain stationary for hours together, waiting
till the rain came before continuing my journey. On the weak and aged,
and especially on delicate Females, the force of attraction tells much
more heavily than on the robust of the Male Sex, so that it is a point
of breeding, if you meet a Lady on the street, always to give her the
North side of the way--by no means an easy thing to do always at short
notice when you are in rude health and in a climate where it is
difficult to tell your North from your South.

Windows there are none in our houses: for the light comes to us alike
in our homes and out of them, by day and by night, equally at all times
and in all places, whence we know not. It was in old days, with our
learn