ational defence and in order to obtain orders. Among the citizens of
middle rank and of the liberal professions some resigned themselves to
this state of affairs without complaining, believing that it would last
for ever; others waited impatiently for its end and thought they might
be able to lead the powers to a simultaneous disarmament.

The illustrious Professor Obnubile belonged to this latter class.

"War," said he, "is a barbarity to which the progress of civilization
will put an end. The great democracies are pacific and will soon impose
their will upon the aristocrats."

Professor Obnubile, who had for sixty years led a solitary and retired
life in his laboratory, whither external noises did not penetrate,
resolved to observe the spirit of the peoples for himself. He began
his studies with the greatest of all democracies and set sail for New
Atlantis.

After a voyage of fifteen days his steamer entered, during the night,
the harbour of Titanport, where thousands of ships were anchored. An
iron bridge thrown across the water and shining with lights, stretched
between two piers so far apart that Professor Obnubile imagined he was
sailing on the seas of Saturn and that he saw the marvellous ring which
girds the planet of the Old Man. And this immense conduit bore upon it
more than a quarter of the wealth of the world. The learned Penguin,
having disembarked, was waited on by automatons in a hotel forty-eight
stories high. Then he took the great railway that led to Gigantopolis,
the capital of New Atlantis. In the train there were restaurants,
gaming-rooms, athletic arenas, telegraphic, commercial, and financial
offices, a Protestant Church, and the printing-office of a great
newspaper, which latter the doctor was unable to read, as he did not
know the language of the New Atlantans. The train passed along the banks
of great rivers, through manufacturing cities which concealed the sky
with the smoke from their chimneys, towns black in the day, towns red at
night, full of noise by day and full of noise also by night.

"Here," thought the doctor, "is a people far too much engaged in
industry and trade to make war. I am already certain that the New
Atlantans pursue a policy of peace. For it is an axiom admitted by all
economists that peace without and peace within are necessary for the
progress of commerce and industry."

As he surveyed Gigantopolis, he was confirmed in this opinion. People
went through the street