The Journey Commences
Two days later I set out on what was to prove the most extraordinary
excursion of my life. Arriving early in the morning at the appointed
meeting place--an open, flower-bordered “circle” or park near the
western end of the town--I was greeted by a score of eager young men
and women, who introduced themselves as my traveling companions. They
were all in an excited, highly animated condition, chatting and jesting
continually, moving about restlessly, gay with the gaiety of high
expectations; and they all, without exception, were conspicuously and
vividly youthful, for their ages must have varied between eighteen and
twenty-one. At the same time, they resembled their fellow Atlanteans
in that they looked utterly wholesome and unworldly, and had the grace
and beauty of persons whose lives have been unstained and whose minds
untarnished.
I was just wondering whether these attractive creatures were to
be my sole companions, when I was surprised by the sight of four
newcomers--two men and two women of somewhat maturer years than
the others. At the moment of their arrival they were surrounded so
enthusiastically by the members of the party that I had not a chance
for a clear glimpse of them; but even a partial glimpse was enough to
make me stop short with a gasp of delight--among their number I thought
I saw the sparkling blue eyes of Aelios! At first I was not sure; but
with fast-throbbing heart I pressed forward, and to my inexpressible
joy found that I had not been mistaken.
“Aelios!” I cried, as soon as I could manage to draw her to one side.
“Aelios--what are you doing here?”
She smiled her bewilderingly sweet smile, but did not choose to answer
directly. “What are you doing here?” she countered.
“Why, you should know without asking,” I reminded her. “Didn’t I show
you my summons from the Committee on Selective Assignments?”
“Yes, I remember,” she murmured. “Only, I didn’t know you would set
out on your travels so soon. But I’m really very glad. Now you’ll be a
full-fledged citizen of Atlantis!”
“But are you going with us, Aelios? Are you going, too?” I asked, still
unable to credit my good fortune.
“Yes, I am going.” And, observing how quizzically I was regarding her,
she continued, “You see, three or four tutors are assigned to each of
the traveling parties, for we have made the journey before, and are
able to explain the sights along the way.”
“But how can you leave so suddenly?” I questioned, remembering
Stranahan’s daily lessons. “How about--how about the work you were
doing here?”
“Oh, I am excused, of course, until my return. Some other tutor is
substituted for me, and everything goes along smoothly enough with my
students.”
“Their loss is our good fortune,” said I, quite truthfully; and Aelios
acknowledged the compliment with a gracious bow, and then smilingly
rejoined the other tutors.
A few minutes later we were under way. We crossed the Salty River
on a long bridge overarched with a crystal arcade and lined with
friezes representing mythological scenes; then on the northern bank,
we followed a little winding lane westward at the base of the marble
palaces and towers. Before many minutes, we approached the borders
of the city; and when at length we passed into the open country,
my companions experienced a rare burst of high spirits. Some gave
expression to their feelings by low, soft cries of joy; some capered,
romped and laughed merrily along the way; some engaged in loud-pitched
and enthusiastic discussions; but all looked carefree and happy indeed;
and I could not help being infected with their gay mood. I experienced
nothing of the constraint that might have been only natural, for
my companions seemed to accept me frankly as one of them, and in
consequence I felt hardly out of place. Before long I was chatting with
several of the young men as volubly as though I had known them all
their lives.
Of Aelios I caught no more than a glimpse on that first day. She
seemed to be absorbed in her conversations with the other tutors; and
an occasional smiling glance in my direction was all that she would
vouchsafe me. But I was happy merely to know that she was near, and was
convinced that succeeding days would offer opportunities to strengthen
our friendship. And at the same time I was so well occupied that I had
little leisure for thinking of anybody in particular.
To one who has never been underseas and gazed at the landscapes of
that incredible world, it will be impossible to convey any idea of
the enthusiasm and the wonder I felt. Already I had beheld marvels
in Atlantis, marvels sufficient to bewilder the most audacious
imagination; but that which I now observed was so unique as momentarily
to overshadow even my previous discoveries.
* * * * *
For the first hour after leaving the city we pursued a little path
that ran almost in a straight line along the banks of the Salty River.
Opposite us, across the stream, stretched the long, low contours of the
colonnades and temples I had inspected soon after arriving in Atlantis;
and at our feet the waters shot swiftly by, with gentle swishing and
murmuring, a green-gray expanse several hundred yards across, but
differing from all other rivers I had ever beheld in that it was of the
same width at all points and flowed in a straight and orderly manner
without any twists, turns or meanderings.
All this, of course, I had already observed; and my first surprises
were not to come until at length the road bent abruptly northward away
from the river and we entered what was for me a virgin territory. As we
advanced, the vegetation became denser and more curious; tall reeds,
bushes and trees began to cluster about us until I had the impression
of being lost in a jungle. But it was a jungle such as no explorer has
ever viewed in the wilds of Africa, New Guinea, or Brazil, for the
plants were so fantastic that even the strange undersea vegetation I
had already beheld seemed commonplace by comparison. Here, for the
first time, the trees were of a vivid green, and a normal foliage was
abundant; yet there was so much which looked abnormal that I could
only stare and stare in amazement. Some of the trees had branches
symmetrically woven into the likenesses of great cobwebs, and from
those cobwebs at regular intervals dangled dusters of grape-like
fruits; other trees were cactus-like and leafless, with huge round
protuberances at regular intervals along their spiny boles; still
others were almost concealed amid thick meshes of vines, or were
adorned with multicolored cup-shaped blossoms larger than a man’s
head, or dominated by scores of succulent-looking stalks like gigantic
asparagus. Then again some were little more than great rounded and
compressed masses of leafage, reminding me of ten-foot cabbages; and
some would have struck me as nothing more than ordinary mushrooms,
had they not reached as high as my waist; and some of the shrubs and
creepers bore pods resembling those of beans and peas, except that
they were over a foot in length. But the most conspicuous fact about
this strange assemblage of plants was that the vast majority seemed to
be fruit-bearing; and on all sides one could observe a multitude of
green fruits of all sizes and shapes, as well as a profusion of the
ripening and ripe product, some of it small as cherries and some large
as watermelons, some pale green and some gaudy red, some lemon-hued and
some a modest pink and some a deep purple, but all striking one by a
contrast and a variety as pleasing to the eye as it was extraordinary.
As we entered this peculiar jungle-like region, I noted a marked
change in the atmosphere. For the first time, I became aware that there
could be such a thing as climate in Atlantis: the air was growing dank
and overheated, and I had the impression of having entered the tropics.
And simultaneously I observed an increase of light that for the moment
dazzled me, and I felt as if a torrid sun were burning directly above.
Yet the source of the added warmth and illumination was in no way a
mystery: brilliant white lamps had been placed at intervals along the
great roof-supporting tinted columns, glaring down upon the foliage
like miniature suns, and combining with the larger golden orbs to lend
the scene a dream-like and unearthly beauty.
Before long I noted that the vegetation was interrupted every few
hundred yards by a ditch from five to ten feet across and filled to
the brim with sluggish brown water. Had not these trenches invariably
been of even width and geometrical straightness, I might have mistaken
them for rivulets; but their precise outlines would permit but one
interpretation, and they brought me remembrances of the irrigation
canals I had seen on the semi-arid plains of Arizona and California.
It seemed, however, that they served more than a single purpose; for
as we crossed a little arching bridge over one of the widest of their
waterways, I saw a long, flat boat anchored just beneath my feet; and
four or five men, clad in close-fitting gray instead of in the usual
long-flowing tinted robes, were busy loading this barge with newly
plucked clusters of blue and crimson and orange-colored fruit.
Even had there been no one to enlighten me concerning these queer
jungles, I would now have understood their general nature. Still they
seemed to embody a multitude of mysteries, mysteries to be explained by
no known laws of biology; and, accordingly, I listened eagerly when one
of the tutors, finding himself besieged by an enthusiastic, questioning
coterie, launched forth upon on explanatory discourse.
“From the earliest times, as you know,” said he, speaking informally,
and yet with something of the manner of a professor addressing his
class, “We Atlanteans have been skilled in horticulture. To begin
with, nature provided the stimulus, for the flora of an island such
as Atlantis is apt to be unique, and that of our own country was
particularly so. But long before the Submergence, we had outdone nature
by developing a multitude of new plants; and since the Submergence
our botanists have busied themselves incessantly with the study
of artificial stimulation of vegetable life. It is well known how
industriously they have experimented, trying the effect of new soils
and environments, grafting the limbs of innumerable bushes and trees,
cross-fertilizing and encouraging all favorable chance growths or
‘sports’; and in these pursuits they have been aided by the altered
environment of Atlantis, which seems favorable to rapid and sudden
variation, and has given rise to innumerable varieties of plants
unknown before.
“I do not need to tell you how essential all this has been for the
maintenance of Atlantean life, for our land is limited in extent and
much of it is unsuited for agriculture; only by the intensive and
forced development of the rest can we hope to support our people. And
so it has been necessary to evolve food-plants that would produce more
prolifically than any known before; and at the same time we have had to
develop a light which would be the chemical equivalent of sunlight, and
so would stimulate the chlorophyl of the leaves, the original source
of all organic matter. This, to be sure, was accomplished even before
the Submergence; but since the Submergence there has been a constant
improvement in the quality of the artificial sunlight; and in the
eleventh century A. S., the great chemist, Sorandos, produced a light
actually superior to sunlight. At least (for some reason that Sorandos
himself never made sufficiently plain) it stimulates plant life to an
extraordinarily rapid growth, even though it has the compensating fault
of inducing rapid decay. It is this light which you see shining down
upon you now from the great stone columns.”
* * * * *
The speaker paused, and I thought the time opportune to put a question
which had been puzzling me. “You tell us that you have need for
intensive crop production,” said I, “and yet have I not heard that you
can produce food chemically?”
“Yes, indeed,” admitted the tutor, with a shrug. “The same light that
develops the chlorophyl in plants may be employed for the synthetic
manufacture of starch and sugar out of charcoal and distilled water.
But that is an old-fashioned method, and not very successful on the
whole, for we have found that this artificial food lacks some element
essential for good health.”
“Even so, why rely wholly upon plant life?” I inquired, curious to know
why my diet in Atlantis had been strictly vegetarian. “Do you never--do
you never eat meat?”
“Eat meat?” The tutor’s tone was one of astonishment; and I observed
half a dozen pairs of eyes staring at me in shocked surprise.
For a moment I felt like one who has urged cannibalism or some
other barbarous rite. And my discomfort was scarcely relieved when
my informant sternly declared, “There has been no meat consumed in
Atlantis since the Submergence; flesh-eating has been discarded along
with the other uncivilized practices of the ancients. How could we feel
ourselves to be superior to the beasts and yet live at the cost of
blood?”
“But are there no animals at all in Atlantis?” I found the courage to
inquire.
“Oh, yes, though naturally we couldn’t take care of many after the
Submergence.” And my companion paused, and pointed to a little
red-breasted feathered thing perched amid the dense green of the
foliage. “There are birds of course--we could not dispense with them.
Then there are a few insects, such as the butterflies--and the bees,
which give us honey and are necessary for plant pollenization--though
all harmful insects were long ago destroyed. Also, there are squirrels
and chipmunks and other small creatures; and in the Salty River and the
canals there are numerous fish. And in some places along the banks of
the Salty River there are hundreds of bullfrogs.”
“Bullfrogs!” I exclaimed. “Bullfrogs!” And suddenly I understood the
meaning of those strange noises which had so terrified my shipmates and
myself during our first night in Atlantis!
* * * * *
[Illustration: And along each side of the broad passageway, rising
almost to meet the ceiling, was a series of what I took to be gigantic
boilers. All of these were connected with innumerable wires and
with pipes thicker than a man’s body, while at the further end of
the gallery the tubes were interwoven in intricate loops, coils and
convolutions like the exposed entrails of a Titan.]
* * * * *