l the Sun had entered the door was looked
upon as an irredeemable sluggard. The track of the spot from the
door-sill to the wall opposite was measured by linear distance from the
centre or noon-position of the spot. As in different houses the
apertures through which the clock-light was admitted were always the
same distance from the floor, such expressions as "two feet before
noon," or "a foot and a quarter after noon" (which I translate from the
Kemish) always had a definite and exact meaning. The nearer the spot
drew to noon the more exactly circular it became and the more slowly it
moved. Therefore, very fine measurements were needed in the middle of
the day, and an inch near noon represented nearly as much time as a foot
in the morning or evening.

But the daylight methods were simplicity itself compared with the night
methods, which were calculated on an entirely different system, based on
the combined movements of the two moons, neither of which agreed or
coincided with the movement of the Sun in any close degree. I urged upon
the doctor, as one of his earliest duties, the necessity of reforming
their calendar and establishing a uniform method of denoting the time,
to extend throughout the day and night. But on this point he failed to
agree with me.

"What are our seconds, minutes, hours, and weeks after all?" he queried.
"They are only arbitrary and meaningless divisions of time, which we
have found necessary because we have a very meagre heavenly clockwork;
but here they have a very elaborate one. Our day is a rational period
based on the Sun's revolution. Here they have seen fit to give up the
Sun-day to simplify matters and stick to a Moon-day. Their two contrary
moons furnish a rational, if rather intricate, method of telling the
time at night. They are best understood by imagining them to represent
the two hands of a clock. The smaller moon is what may be called a 'week
hand,' completing its revolution in five and a half Sun-days; which they
have for convenience divided into six Moon-days of twenty-two hours
each. The larger moon makes two complete revolutions in a day, just as
the hour hand of a clock does; and it really makes but little difference
that it travels around the dial in an opposite direction to that of the
'week hand,' or that they both gain two hours a day on the Sun. These
are mere details, that one gets used to in the end."

"Doctor, you argue like the old farmer I used to know, who stuck