d
journeys, one for aerial voyages: the former were of all sizes and
forms, some not larger than an ordinary carriage, some movable houses of
one story and containing several rooms, furnished according to the ideas
of comfort or luxury which are entertained by the Vril-ya. The aerial
vehicles were of light substances, not the least resembling our
balloons, but rather our boats and pleasure-vessels, with helm and
rudder, with large wings or paddles, and a central machine worked by
vril. All the vehicles both for land or air were indeed worked by that
potent and mysterious agency.

I saw a convoy set out on its journey, but it had few passengers,
containing chiefly articles of merchandise, and was bound to a
neighbouring community; for among all the tribes of the Vril-ya there
is considerable commercial interchange. I may here observe, that their
money currency does not consist of the precious metals, which are too
common among them for that purpose. The smaller coins in ordinary use
are manufactured from a peculiar fossil shell, the comparatively scarce
remnant of some very early deluge, or other convulsion of nature, by
which a species has become extinct. It is minute, and flat as an oyster,
and takes a jewel-like polish. This coinage circulates among all the
tribes of the Vril-ya. Their larger transactions are carried on much
like ours, by bills of exchange, and thin metallic plates which answer
the purpose of our bank-notes.

Let me take this occasion of adding that the taxation among the tribe I
became acquainted with was very considerable, compared with the amount
of population. But I never heard that any one grumbled at it, for it was
devoted to purposes of universal utility, and indeed necessary to the
civilisation of the tribe. The cost of lighting so large a range
of country, of providing for emigration, of maintaining the public
buildings at which the various operations of national intellect were
carried on, from the first education of an infant to the departments in
which the College of Sages were perpetually trying new experiments in
mechanical science; all these involved the necessity for considerable
state funds. To these I must add an item that struck me as very
singular. I have said that all the human labour required by the state is
carried on by children up to the marriageable age. For this labour the
state pays, and at a rate immeasurably higher than our own remuneration
to labour even in the United S