The Venus folks had concluded that our cold earth could not possibly be inhabited.—Author, chap. xix.
Having now given to the reader my thousand years' retrospect, I return from its long, but, as I hope, not uninstructive digression, to the business tour in which I was engaged on behalf of my friend, young Brown. I don't mean to assert that I had finished my history when, on the fifth day, by the slacking of speed, and other well-understood indications, I was made aware that we were nearing Mars; for, in fact, I was busy over the work pretty well all the rest of the time of our tour; and a very pleasant occupation for super-abundant leisure it proved to be, to say nothing of the prospects of publishing profits. Regarding this last, we earth folks, as I have repeated occasion to mention, have always, at bottom, an eye to business. But now I bundle up my papers, and pass at once into the main cabin to see what is going on.
There I found all the passengers gazing after little Phobos, who had just whisked past us in his rapid pace of seven hours and a half around Mars. This curious little moon used to be one of the chief dangers of early Marsian navigation; for as we mostly steered for equatorial landing-places, we were thus just in the way of the Phobos orbit, and liable to his suddenly rounding upon us. To-day, indeed, the pilotage hereabouts is all that can be desired for precision and safety; but this was not quite the case for some years at first; and the danger was aggravated to such excursions as were other than of a strictly business character, seeing that, as the party drew near to Mars, they were apt repeatedly to pull up, in order to watch more leisurely both the revolving principal and his two very close little fly-round moons. In this way, on one occasion, a large school party, on holiday, made a narrow escape of being crashed into by Phobos, of course to their utter destruction.
There was, as we quite expected, no small attempt at demonstration at our arrival, with banners flying and drums beating. All this was at the instance, mainly, of the New Party, for our visit had been fully anticipated, as I must now proceed to explain. Our earth having charge of Mars during his upward progress towards the higher life, any notable personage from amongst us, who happens to be going to that planet, is usually endowed with an official and representative character, for the time being, in the Marsian relationship. I being an ex vice-president of the great society which has had Marsian matters more directly in hand, and being also, as I may, perhaps, assert without vanity, somewhat of a leading person generally in my world, was duly awarded this high position, so soon as it became known that I was about to visit the planet. But this being a relationship altogether externally imposed upon Mars, and without any reference to his own consent, our self-assumed position towards the planet was consequently of a rather delicate kind, and might be made somewhat ruffling to Marsian susceptibilities, were it not for the extreme care and consideration with which we were always wont to act.
A delegation met us at the landing, to invite myself and friend to a grand public dinner, which was then and there fixed for the last day of our proposed stay, Marsians can do nothing of public moment without a public dinner. Having duly accepted, we at once betook ourselves to the business part of our mission, in view of some remainder of our stay being devoted to such duties of my higher and representative mission as might fall in my way.
There is already an immense business between the two planets; for besides the fact that various metals and metalloids, and chemical elements generally, are relatively scarce or otherwise in one or the other planet—a circumstance which makes indeed the chief foundation of the entire interplanetary trade—we had much that was peculiarly Marsian commerce. Not the least section of this commerce comprised a loop-line of White's great interplanetary liners, which diverged to the two little moons, to which the Marsians ever crowded in thousands, by way of holiday trips, as well as for the magnificent views they thus got of their own comparatively huge revolving world, whose vastly surpassing mass, as thus seen, was already the subject of much arousing Marsian poetry. This again gave rise to large business in the artificial breathing apparatus, as neither of the moons had other than the veriest ghost of a thin atmosphere. All this apparatus business, as well as that of the extensive Marsian phosphate diggings, together with the general interplanetary energy trade, belonged to young Brown's hardware section, and kept him as busy as a bee during our stay upon Mars.
The New Party were, as I have said, specially jubilant on the occasion of this visit, and were fain, on this particular opportunity, to make political capital out of my presence, as it happened most timely for their coming struggle to get rid of the ancient lottery-box system. They had now, in fact, some good hope of at last completely accomplishing this great result during the approaching session of the great Pobb-Likk. I could not, of course, but side here with the New Party; and they, for their part, were by no means tender in coercing me, whenever they had the chance, to declare for their views on this and other questions. Thus, when challenged on the subject, I must needs assert that Accident was inadmissible to the higher life, where only Principle could live and reign. Statements and admissions of this kind were not at all to the mind of the Old Party, even although they might concede that abstract perfection was not to be had on Mars any more than elsewhere in these lower worlds, and that in heaven possibly society might be able to dispense with that present firm support which it derived from the system of Accident.
The dinner, which, as I afterwards learnt, proved in its way an immense success, was attended by a good sprinkling of Accidents; for the New Party is by no means confined to the other class any more than the Old Party is exclusively composed of Accidents. Indeed, this latter party consists of Accident-supporting Principles even much more largely, numerically, than of Accidents. I was interested, not to say amused, at the dinner, to mark the deference paid to the Accidents, quite irrespective of anything personal. One of these, who was placed next to myself, as the seat of highest honour, I found to have hardly an idea in his head, and to be much in my way in conversing with other and better filled heads beyond him. And yet, with these odd Marsians, it would have been quite a breach of usual propriety and courtesy to have put this helpless Accident anywhere else.
This dinner made rather a memorable occasion. There was much mutual compliment flying about on all sides. New Party views were decidedly uppermost. But as some of the speechifying was considered rather extreme for average Marsian opinion, we were warned to prepare for a counterblast. This was to come from the leading journal of the planet, the famous and ably edited Semit Eht, a paper which, as indeed its name indicated, sought to adapt itself always to the times in which it lived. With an Old Party instinct, it was yet, ostensibly, with the New Party, and was ever ready to throw overboard, to the wolves of that party, whatever in social and political progress seemed no longer possible of retention. Thus it was not seldom changing front, in admitting, and even triumphantly arguing for, what it might previously have sternly opposed. The journal was thus at times a source of great irritation to the Old Party, although it might be claiming, all the while, by so wise and prudent a line of policy, to be really their friend. Marvellous, indeed, had been of late the advance of New Party ideas. A popular refrain of the Old Party, which, at the time of our earth's first visit to Mars, might have been enthusiastically chorused at Old Party gatherings, was now sadly in abeyance even there, and, with still worse fate, had assumed only jocular significance with the New Party. The couplet in question might be thus freely translated:—
But leave us still our Lott'ry Box and Accidents.
From the dinner-table young Brown and I made direct for our interplanetary packet, being bound next for the First Jovian moon. Feeling somewhat tired with all our last day's doings, we both went straight to bed; and I, for my part, did not re-awake until we were well-nigh a fourth of the way to the outer edges of the asteroids on their Marsian side. We had heard, just before leaving, that the influential Semit Eht was to thunder against us, in its first leader, next morning, by way of rebuke and protest, for our earth's intermeddling with Marsian affairs. As a copy of the paper, with the article in question, reached us at Io by the succeeding mail, I may as well give here some idea of its attack. The Marsian newspapers, I may here also remark, are the oddest and clumsiest things imaginable, being all printed separately from types, and upon such huge expanses of heavy paper, that a mere few hundreds of them would make a fair load for even a strong back. Their circulation is rarely much above a hundred thousand respectively, and over this petty handful of copies they will be pulling away for whole hours of a morning, with a huge and cumbrous iron printing machine. What a contrast, in this respect, between the processes of the two planets! And what, for instance, would these Marsian slow-coaches say to our most recent diaphanous-reflector process, which flashes off a million copies per second!
Well, the article in question begins, somewhat warily, in high compliment to our earth, "that much vaster and brighter world, from whose advanced science Marsians had admittedly so much to learn, and whose illustrious citizens had honoured them by frequent personal intercourse." Then followed a delicate laudation of the reader's humble servant, as "one who was by no means the least of the rival multitudes of the great of his own great world—a conspicuous personage alike publicly and privately, as conducting, with eminently successful ability, an extensive business of his own, of far ancestral inheritance, and comprising, perhaps, the most important section of all commerce." My understood ambassadorial character was then alluded to, and all due respect from Marsians claimed for it.
But, again, on the other hand, as the article went on to say, that great earth is a world of one set of circumstances, and Mars of quite another, each being good in its own way, and each having to work out for itself its own particular problem and destiny. Mars did not presume to impose his ideas of things upon worlds outside, and he had therefore all the better right to hold that outside worlds should not intermeddle with him. Then followed some allusions, in the sarcastic vein, to the "so-called higher life," whose principles and prospects were being thrust, nolens volens upon Marsians. That higher life, like a certain other promised outside paradise, said the article, might not unlikely suit Marsians in the life hereafter, or possibly even in this life, if they could all transfer themselves to some differently circumstanced world. But let Marsians be content to go along in their own independent way, repelling and even resenting impertinent and unasked-for outside interference, from whatever quarter. Marsians had no bad world of their own, and their duty was to maintain those ancient institutions under which the planet had grown so powerful and prosperous. They had no need, on the whole, to envy any worlds outside of their own, even although such worlds very possibly felt, or at least affected to feel, superiorities.
Then alluding, in a tone of rising and culminating indignation, to a modern upsetting, traitorous habit, even amongst themselves, of judging their ancient institutions and ways of things by purely abstract standards, and a vulgar habit of testing every venerable traditional heritage, with all its rich incidence of peculiarity, by the mere practical-merits ideal of to-day, as though a thousand years' life had no merits or rights of its own to set up, the article, in conclusion, went on to say, that the challenge, even on the cold modern basis of "the merits," was fearlessly accepted. Yes, even on the merits, let the battle then be finally fought out. Far too much, nowadays, was it chattered, with all the cheapness of irresponsibility and inexperience, that our Lottery-box might be safely swept away; while a profane levity of spirit would go even so far as to look slightingly upon our grand old system of the supremacy of Accident. But the too readily assumed injustice of the public law, in the first of these cases, might be fairly met by the consideration, that the lucky one of the family, to whom the cast of the dice gave all the estate, was probably, with his plethora of means superseding all further need for either mental or bodily exertion, with his enslavement to all the absorbing social demands of his position, and with possibly some twinge of conscience embittering all, not really one jot happier, or one tittle less miserable, than the rest who were made destitute. Then, again, as to their ancient and dignified institution of the Accidents, did it not strikingly resemble the fairy's wand, which called, peaceably, into ready-made existence, all the hill and dale scenery of the Marsian system of rank, instead of the one monotonous dead level of mere Principle, varied only, perhaps, by the alternative of a tempestuous ocean of everlasting rivalry, strife, and unrest, if rank and honour depended upon mere personal considerations? The radical blast of these days might try its best to strip Marsians of the warmth and security of all this old accustomed clothing; but the stronger it blew, the more tightly and lovingly would they still cling to their venerable Lottery-box, and their sacred hierarchy of Accident.
As we had taken the express to Io, the very much longer voyage on which we now embarked was to be made at much greater relative speed than we had experienced to Mars. We were able, also, from the relative positions of Mars and Io at the time, to make a pretty straight course to the latter, which avoided almost entirely the dangerous intermediate archipelago of the ultra-zodiacal planetoids. This and the other Jovian moons, in their somewhat cooler zone of the solar system, and with their own primary's heat still tempered by thick cloud envelopes, have been fortunate in a more prolonged life than our satellite; but they have not, by any means, made the same rapidity of progress that had set in upon our moon for its briefer career. The first and second Jovian moons have both attained indeed the culminating human stage; but only in the first is there as yet a fair degree of civilization, the second being still toiling its way through the usually protracted stage of flint-chipping. The third moon, Ganymede, although considerably the largest of all, and therefore, so far, of promising ultimate future, is as yet only up to the anthropoidal stage, while the fourth, Callisto, is still further astern.
Io being not very much larger than our moon, the human form, as developed in both worlds, had been nearly similar, being somewhat slighter than that of the Marsians, while the latter was still short of that firmer bone and figure due to the greater gravity of the earth. Io, as regarded that hemisphere of her body, which is always turned to Jupiter, averaged a temperature but little above our own. Her tropical apex, however, with huge and glowing Jupiter always right overhead, proved, to our feelings, rather a warm berth. We felt more comfortable about three-fourths down latitude, towards the edge of that other and off-hemisphere, which never gets Jupiter's warmth, and which is consequently a cold desolation, occupied by inferior organisms, and by mere scattered trading colonies of the people of the other and more favoured hemisphere. Away down the lunar latitudes just alluded to, and with the shelter of a hill between us and heat-radiating Jupiter, this said latitude had for us quite a pleasant temperature. The sun, at the great distance of the Jovian system, did not seem, to us at least, of much comparative account. He was, indeed, a brilliant little orb, throwing off a good deal of light, but as regarded heat altogether second to the mighty overshadowing planet just at the door.
Those leading First Jovian features, namely, the small size, the moderate light-supply, and the ample and genial heat, were all duly reflected in the particular human attainment. The people were not ambitious, and still less scientific, but quiet and plodding, utilitarian, and business-like throughout. All progress and discovery was ever at the instance of the practical. They could hardly understand mere science for its own sake. Having discovered some time ago, by a happy accident, the principle of the telescope, they had since applied the instrument chiefly to profitable business and amusement—one leading amusement consisting in the enlarged view of the vast overhead cloud-mass agitations of Jupiter, a spectacle especially attractive to children. When we tendered to them any explanations about astronomic systems, they always asked for some practical outcome, and if nothing promised in that way, their attention and interest soon ceased. But withal we ever found them excellent, simple-minded, direct business people, ever ready to truck and traffic with us. For some time at first our profits from these people were fabulous, as some of our very cheapest wares, such as, for instance, our cross-electric matches, striking, as they did, a brilliant light, which lasted for a few minutes, or even hours, according to power-accumulation and price, were intensely valued by them.
Life proved rather pleasant to us here, and in more respects than those merely of climate, the fact being that we Earthians are greatly looked up to, and held in most flatteringly reverential consideration by these simple Jovians; for, if they care little about our science for its own sake, they yet readily see our power to apply it to all sorts of useful and profitable things, and they are struck with awe and admiration accordingly. Many of our people now live here for weeks and months together, in making business arrangements. There is quite an old home-like aspect in some of the physical features, there being much of hill and dale on the small scale, with rivers and small lake expanses, all, however, being of fresh water, without the variety of our salt seas. Owing to the comparatively great heat directly under vertical Jupiter, the water there is constantly and rapidly evaporated, passing in clouds away to the cold edges of the hemisphere, and ever returning, by Jupiter's attraction, in cool and gurgling streams, which are the great resource and daily enjoyment of the population. The Jovians are fond of bathing in these pleasant and invigorating waters. Their doctors strongly prescribe this custom, and parents superadd their authority, for the race is thus kept in health and strength, to the great advantage of its business and earning powers.
Speaking of the power of Jupiter's attraction over the waters reminds me of another phase of it, which made Io's apex uncomfortable to us on other grounds than that of mere heat. We felt up there a lightness of foothold, as though there were no terra firma beneath us; and even when we retreated towards the cooler edge of the hemisphere, Jupiter kept pulling at us, with the effect of causing us to stand at a very perceptible angle to the perpendicular. From the same cause those Ioans, who had adventured to the opposite apex of their globe, brought word of the mysterious downward strain upon their frame, which made business labour almost impossible. The journey to the opposite apex was to them, in fact, simply an exhausting climb up a huge mountain, the drag and difficulty of which increased with every mile of ascent, as the weary and distressed travellers came into more and more direct line with Jupiter's and their own lesser world's gravity. Thus this practical people got acquainted with gravity, through its business inconvenience to themselves; and they were interested in our explanations of the law of its action, and more especially of the obviating processes, through our ordinary force-convertibility. But this latter was much too deep a subject, and, above all, much too costly an agent, for the Ioans to think of it.
Their regular bathing habit is connected with one of their most remarkable peculiarities. They all bathe quite publicly, and usually without a particle of clothing to either young or old, male or female. But this is simply because bathing is most pleasant and beneficial in this free way, and in no sense whatever from any want of modesty or true propriety of feeling. On the contrary, the Jovian lady, and especially the young maiden, would shrink, more even than our own females, from advances of the other sex. The Jovian peculiarity is, that no importance whatever is attached to the mere seeing of each other. The most modest of Jovian damsels, so far as a question of modesty is concerned, would not have the slightest objection to be merely seen, whether clothed or naked, and by any number of persons of either sex, provided she is secure against touch or contact. These simple Jovians, on the other hand, are much scandalized by the account of certain of our customs—asking, for instance, how our females can be deemed modest and respectable who freely shake hands with the other sex, and speak directly to men, while standing so close as even to touch, let alone being enveloped in their breath. They are also highly amused at our scruples about being seen naked. What possible material harm, they say, can come to us of that? Clothing is worn by the Jovians simply according to feeling, and the young and vigorous, especially in Io's warmer latitudes, are usually without it. But exposure to any contact, even to that of the breath of the other sex, is an impropriety, or, as the case may be, a discourtesy or affront to the female. Of course, all respectable females avoid crowded places as much as possible. But even in such places a high courtesy prevails, to which the other sex can usually trust, for every well-bred man scrupulously clears the way for a passing female.
To return to the bathing, the morning bath always begins the day. The morning and day, by the way, are arranged after a fashion of their own by these Jovians, adapted more or less to what we would be apt to call the inconveniently irregular risings and settings, or rather appearances and disappearances, of their small sun. But these to themselves, accustomed to it all, and with nothing else or better to fall back upon, seemed the very perfection of order, variety, and suitability—so much so, indeed, that they were highly amused to hear that we preferred the monotony of our own regularly graduated day and night. The bathing-place of the district we resided in was not far from our lodging, and I used to stroll down of a morning to watch the neat slim young figures, as they skipped freely about in the clear water. If they were not exactly what we should call handsome, the figure being, to our idea, rather slight for size of head, and the mouth and nostrils rather wide, yet there was withal a real attraction in their simple and pleasing looks and ways. The elderly Jovians, also, turn out to enjoy this daily sight; and in order the better to do so, there is a commodious public pathway, running between the separate bathing-places of the two sexes, where all these seniors, and any others so inclined, may refresh their eyes with the pleasant and lively spectacle. As I gazed down upon it all, I wondered at times what my good wife would have said to such on-goings, and, still more, to her better half quietly enjoying them. But "Do as they do at Rome" is the rule here; and in this field of innocence, let me add, "Evil be to him who evil thinks." Still, I did rather hint to young Brown that it might probably be almost better, if perhaps we could possibly avoid alluding at all to the subject to the old lady, on our return home.
I might translate the name of this attractive public resort as the Esthetic Walk, only that our term is, perhaps, a trifle too transcendental and abstract for the practical Jovians of Io. Much of a practical and business consideration is connected with all this bathing institution. The Jovians attach very great importance, alike to perfect health and perfect form, because, as they justly say, much expense is saved by the former, and much more work done, and business profit made, by the latter. Such forms, therefore, are held in great distinction, and the Jovians have quite a way of their own of distinguishing them. Thus there is, in every district, the common public bath, to which any one may go; but there is, distinctively, also the Esthetic Bath, reserved for those only of approved health and perfection of form. If any one else wishes to enter this particular bath, he or she must don for the time a slight dress, so that the onlooking public, expecting only the perfection attributable to the place, may not be presented with forms which, as more or less defective, have failed to pass the ordeal. This dress has acquired, amongst the younger maiden aspirants particularly, the name of "the night-gown," to signify its blighting effects to the hopes and ambitions of those who are forced to wear it.
Many a fair young maiden, in the happy days of her courtship, will regularly sport about in the Esthetic Bath, defying the night-gown, and giving the loved one, in the adjacent bath, every opportunity he could wish to satisfy himself as to the perfection of his future wife. The baths are separated only by the slightest of open gratings. Modesty does not admit of speaking to one another, as there might be contact by the breath. Indeed, the highest courtesy, as well as the best manners, is to appear not to be looking directly at your object, however absorbing. Prudent old parents are less pretentious in that fashionable high delicacy; and when an engagement seems likely to take place, the parents on both sides, not altogether trusting the discernment of the parties themselves, through the usual mists of love's spectacles, may be seen repeatedly upon the Esthetic Walk, accompanied by the family doctor, and contriving a much more direct inspection.
The guardians of the Esthetic Bath have at times no small trouble with the Jovian fair sex, in their efforts to preserve, in full integrity, the bath principle; and more especially as to that critical period when even the very handsomest of their day must, at last, by the natural attacks of time, be either shrouded in the blighting and abhorred gown, or, as the sad alternative, be entirely expelled from the esthetic scene. Many a fair dame, who differs entirely from her judges on the point in question, and resents what she regards as their erroneous or premature decision, takes alike her consolation and her revenge, by strutting about publicly and gownless, everywhere else, in order to show her own confidence, at least, in her still remaining charms and graces. Our landlady happened to be one of those prematurely blighted ones; and even now, after a further good dozen of years, she courageously persists in her daily challenge parade. She will occasionally pose before young Brown and me, of a morning in the garden, and without a particle of clothing, that we can detect, except her spectacles. When the odd novelty of the thing had worn off, we would both, on such affecting and trying occasions, bolt off like a shot to the preferable Esthetic Walk.
White has established here a line of small packets, which ply from the First Jovian to the three other moons outside, but only towards the times when they are respectively in near "opposition," at which times, of course, their distance is much diminished. It is only in this energy-economizing way, and with an occasional excursion, for wondering Ioan sightseers, in the direction of Jupiter, that the line can be made to pay. There is no help in passenger traffic, for instance, from even the Second Jovian. Indeed, the flint-chipping savages there are rather an obstacle; and more especially in the colder latitudes of that moon they are at times truculent and dangerous to such a degree as the plodding First Jovians have no fancy to encounter, in their purely business expeditions. We ourselves, also, were in something of the same mind just at this particular time, so that we did not visit any of these outhers, having other and better game in view. Still less had we an idea of pushing on as far as Saturn, even had he lain nearer to us then in his orbit. The range of profitable trading narrows much with this costly distance, while the intense cold involves additional expense; and withal only the first Saturnian moon has reached a human population, and that as yet hardly out of the paleolithics in flints and other barbarism. The grand spectacle of the Saturnian Rings, and all that sort of thing, although well enough for poetry, does not now enter into business purview. We therefore turned our steps homewards, taking, however, the packet to Vesta, with intention to call, besides, at one or two other and lesser planetoids which might happen at the time to lie most conveniently in our way.
This great celestial archipelago, of almost countless worlds, from a few hundred miles' diameter, to a few inches or even still less, used to present a very dangerous navigation for some years at first. Several of the earlier expeditions into it were never more heard of. One in particular was actually seen, from our observatory in Ceres, to be dashed into by a passing world, no bigger than a haystack of our old times, and thus itself banged into an irregular and extremely elliptical orbit round the sun, which the dead and smashedup components are supposed to be maintaining ever since. But now, by precautionarily keeping a certain speed, in a certain slanting direction, on entering the thick of the archipelago, these many bodies or little worlds all running, of course, in one and the same direction, the old dangers are minimized almost to nothing.
Vesta and others of the planetoids possess good phosphate diggings; and as the former has, in common with several others of the larger worlds of this curious system, a human population readily utilizable for business purposes, there are fair opportunities for a stroke of profit in this direction. These Vestians have, to our fancy, an odd appearance, with their very slight, top-heavy looking figures, in accordance with the small gravity of their planet, and with, besides, their wide mouths and noses, to enable them to imbibe a sufficiency of their very thin air. With mouths of their own in much the style of the extreme caricaturing of our old past negro race, these Vestians laugh outright at the bare idea of our little poke-hole of a mouth being regarded as beauty.
My young friend Brown seemed fortunate in the agent he secured here, a decent-looking young Vestian, who, after engagement, accompanied us on a visit to two other little worlds, coursing along near to each other, and both, in fact, within easy telescopic sight of Vesta. As all these worlds, the smaller as well as the greater, turn respectively upon their axis, and usually in periods of twenty to twenty-four hours, we were interested in noticing this fact, especially in standing upon one of the smaller orbs. On the way back to Vesta we descried and gave chase to one very little fellow, of not more than a foot through, and having caught him and transferred him to our decks, we found him to be a light vesicular-looking stuff, chiefly composed of certain sulphates and phosphates, and not altogether unworthy the cost and trouble of capture and freight.
And so, having completed all our business here, we started again straight for home; and after threading the planetoid archipelago with the usual precautions and success, we were able to make a direct and rapid course to earth, which we safely reached, after an absence, in all, of rather less than five weeks.