n I
fell asleep.

_IV.--The Eternal Progress_

I was sitting under a strange tree covered with gigantic red flowers. In
the sky above me were two moons that shed a dim brightness on the lovely
and fantastic scenery. A multitude of radiant shapes fluttered and
darted through the air. They were Martians--exquisite, aerial, and
divinely beautiful figures glowing with luminous tints. Airy gondolas,
which seemed to be fashioned from phosphorescent flowers, passed above
my head, and one of them floated down to the tree under which I was
lying. In it were Iclea and Georges, but etherealised beyond the reach
of human imagination.

They took me in their flying chariot as day was breaking, and we
coursed, with a strange silent interchange of thoughts, over the
orange-coloured land of Mars. I could not understand everything which
was communicated to me, now by Iclea and now by Georges; but I perceived
that all manual labour on the planet was done by means of machines
directed by animals whose intelligence was on a level with my own. The
Martians themselves lived only for the things of the mind; they had
twelve senses instead of five, and their bodies, in which electricity
played the part that blood does in our systems, were so finely and yet
so strongly organised that they possessed an extraordinary power over
the forces of nature. Everything on their world, seas, mountains and
rivers were like their wonderful canals, works of art and science.
Nature was completely plastic in their hands. There was no poverty and
no crime. Deriving their food from the air which they breathe, the
Martians were liberated from material cares and immersed in the joys of
intellectual pursuits.

"You now see, Camille," said Spero, resorting at last to language which
I could clearly understand, "that life on Mars has developed as
peacefully and nobly as it began. There is no break between our
vegetable kingdom and our animal kingdom. We are nourished, like your
plants, trees, and herbs, by the air which we breathe. Ten million years
ago your world was also a scene of innocence and tranquil felicity. The
land was overgrown with a wildly beautiful vegetation that fed on the
gentle winds of heaven, and primitive forms of animal life had spread
from the depths of the sea along the shallow shores, and were there
learning to extract from the air a nourishment similar to that which
they obtained from the water. But by a woeful chance, one of your
prim