CHAPTER II.
THE ICE ISLAND.
Our descent was planned for the Great Ice Island in the Delarue Ocean. It was a bright spot from our world, and so we had chosen it as one suited for a first descent—the more as it seemed isolated, and probably our arrangements would not be disturbed.
On then we flew through space till we reached the attraction of the ruddy planet, and could see his mighty expanse of crimson plains spotted by green oceans and lakes and veiled in clouds with either pole robed in eternal snows. It was autumn in the Southern hemisphere of Mars then, and the white glittering snows stretched over the south. But Huyghens continent and even Laplace land, ruddy with their mighty forests, glowed blood-stained, as it were, beneath us.
On, on we rushed, ever faster and faster, by the power of gravitation of the world to which we were approaching. How vast it seemed; and yet, as we all know, it is smaller far than either your world or than ours. At length the whole expanse beneath us, the equatorial region of Mars, was red or green. Then the ruddy shores of Copernicus and Galileo continents only were in sight on the horizon, with the two great islands which earth's astronomers call Tycho's Island and Schroeter's Land. All else was the green ocean absorbing the sun's rays into its dark emerald verdure. On we flew to the crystal peaks covered with snows of the great Ice Island. They were huge mountains, not unlike your Alpine group of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. A vast region of snowy peaks glittering in the Sun, but unlike Switzerland, not set in green, heaving lands, but in the storm-toss'd waves of the Delarue Ocean —like the peak of Teneriffe in the Atlantic.
Down we sank until at last the anti-gravitating power had to be used to stem the impetus, and even when we reached the snowy peak of one of the ice mountains, we struck it with a violence that almost cracked the rock. Our vessel was, however, strongly constructed, and so it was merely shaken.
Again I felt the joy of treading the firm ground of another world. This was the fourth I had stood upon. My native world had even for ages been my joy—a happy abode. Earth I had trodden on and traversed, even in places where man's foot had never wandered, in Arctic snows, up to the very Pole itself. I had twice gone round your earth, had seen its cities, mountains, oceans, its sin, its misery, its follies, its conceits. Your satellite I had visited and wandered, as I told you, over the rugged slopes of Tycho, and clambered the lunar crater range, and crossed the crater of Copernicus.
And now I stood upon another world—a world that seemed most beautiful, although further removed than ours or yours from the great source of life and beauty, i.e., the glorious centre of our system—the light-giving Sun.
We found ourselves on the summit of a small ice-formed mountain, partially filled with snow. Here we placed our ether-car and buried it in the snows, so that it might not be disturbed by any Martian who might come across it. Then we took flight to the loftiest peak of the ring, from which we surveyed the country.
In the foreground of the strange scene before us was a vast succession of mountains, not unlike icebergs, or the lunar mountains of the South pole. They were all white with snow, or glittering here and there with, icy glaciers. The scene reminded me of some parts of the Moon, and of the lofty plateau of the Dofrefeld. But beyond it and below, was neither lunar desolation nor brown plains of moorland, nor green fields and forests as in your European snowy mountain ranges. As the snows were lost in the low country, vast forests appeared—crimson as blood, or orange-coloured—glowing in the sunlight with a rich deep red. They grew on the ledges of the cliffs under the snows, on the mountain terraces, and lastly stretched down in slopes to the green waters of the Delarue Ocean.
We resolved to plunge downwards to these forests. We flew easily to one of the terraces with overhanging cliffs around it. Here we alighted amidst this crimson vegetation. The effect, as the sun shone through the blood-red leaves, was unutterably superb. The very light was tinted to a ruddy glow. All was gorgeous and magnificent. There is a certain majesty and power in the colour of red which, when seen in large fields, impresses the mind. But no one who has not seen vast masses of red all around in every direction above (in leafy foliage), below in the ruddy, as it were, blood-stained turf, around—in vegetation of quaint forms, but of crimson hue, can realise the inexpressible gorgeousness of this spectacle—a field of peonies or other red flowers would very feebly represent it, for these red flowers of earth have green leaves, and ours have pale and delicate tints; but all was here, as it were, ensanguined in hue. To men's eyes the sight would soon have been wearying, or even maddening; to us it was simply magnificent.
It would not be fair, however, to say that only red was present. It is true, the very light was tinted with red as it passed through the ruddy vegetation; but there were other tints besides, and glorious ones, but only enough to vary the spectacle and to make it splendid. Every colour of the rainbow was there, but crimson and orange predominated. Every other colour was, as it were, set in a glorious back-ground of red. The forms of the plants, for such I suppose I must call them, were various—very different from ours or yours,—quaint growths in curious developments of form, yet not without a certain grace and elegance, for all that God has made is good.
We walked a little while among these strange productions of nature in all their ruddiness, when I heard a rolling sound, and calling the attention of my companions, we walked towards it among the quaint cactus-like plants and trees that made up this wondrous forest. At length we saw something green glittering amidst the red foliage. We came nearer to it. Then we saw the cause of the sound; it was the cascade of green liquid that flowed down with crash and noise from the terrace above. Here, then, were the causes of the Martian tints—i.e., the green waters and the ruddy foliage of that which men once called the war planet; not the mere red rocks (like your Devonian red sand-stone on earth), but that which everywhere results from moisture and sunlight and warmth—vegetation and vegetable life. This ruddy foliage is not unknown to you. The copper-beech is a slight approach to it, the poppy, and the peony, and the red geranium are better examples though on a minute scale. And even green is not unknown in earth seas. I have seen it often when the sun has shone through blue seas on yellow sands—so Mars is not so unearth-like as many planets are.
The Ice Island seemed to be a vast mass of icebergs that had attached themselves to an island covered with vegetation. We resolved at once to leave it for Tycho Island.