bounded Mizora on the south. So I requested the
Preceptress to permit Wauna to accompany me as a guide and companion; a
request she readily complied with.

"Will you be afraid or uneasy about trusting her on so long a journey
with no companion or protector but me?" I asked.

The Preceptress smiled at my question.

"Why should I be afraid, when in all the length and breadth of our land
there is no evil to befall her, or you either. Strangers are friends in
Mizora, in one sense of the word, when they meet. You will both travel
as though among time endeared associates. You will receive every
attention, courtesy and kindness that would be bestowed upon near and
intimate acquaintances. No, in this land, mothers do not fear to send
their daughters alone and unrecommended among strangers."

When speed was required, the people of Mizora traveled altogether by air
ships. But when the pleasure of landscape viewing, and the delight and
exhilaration of easy progress is desired, they use either railroad cars
or carriages.

Wauna and I selected an easy and commodious carriage. It was propelled
by compressed air, which Wauna said could be obtained whenever we needed
a new supply at any village or country seat.

Throughout the length and breadth of Mizora the roads were artificially
made. Cities, towns, and villages were provided with paved streets,
which the public authorities kept in a condition of perfect cleanliness.
The absence of all kinds of animals rendered this comparatively easy. In
alluding to this once in the presence of the Preceptress, she startled
me by the request that I should suggest to my people the advantage to be
derived from substituting machinery for animal labor.

"The association of animals is degrading," she asserted. "And you, who
still live by tilling the soil, will find a marked change economically
in dispensing with your beasts of burden. Fully four-fifths that you
raise on your farms is required to feed your domestic animals. If your
agriculture was devoted entirely to human food, it would make it more
plentiful for the poor."

I did not like to tell her that I knew many wealthy people who housed
and fed their domestic animals better than they did their tenants. She
would have been disgusted with such a state of barbarism.

Country roads in Mizora were usually covered with a cement that was
prepared from pulverized granite. They were very durable and very hard.
Owing to their solidity, they wer