I closed the book which I had been perusing, with a sense of the
liveliest amazement. Was it possible, I thought, that this wonderful
people had really conquered disease, decay, death, and the elements?
The suggestion seemed so wild, and my surroundings altogether were so
strange, that I pinched myself to make sure that I had not really left
my earthly casing behind me, and emerged, Chrysalis-like, into another
world, whereof the grovelling nature of my former existence had failed
to give me any conception.
But no, I was as sensitive to pain as ever I had been; and, to make the
situation once more one of active reality, Hilda presently made her
re-appearance. It was well for me that she seemed to have taken a strong
fancy to me, otherwise I should never have been able to feel so much at
ease in her presence as I did.
True, she was not more than nineteen years of age, so she told me, and
was still pursuing the studies which were to qualify her to become a
full-blown Lecturer on Chemical Science, but her physique was so
splendid, and her mental qualities of such surprising vigour for one so
young as she, that it was impossible for me to regard myself other than
as a very inferior being in her presence.
She was very pleased to find that I had been able to read the books she
had placed at my disposal; but her powers of belief were severely taxed
when I insisted that the retrospect, referring to the peculiar habits
and customs of the Ancients, was a faithful picture of things as they
still existed in my own country.
“To tell you the truth,” she said at last, “I think that you have been
asleep for about six hundred years. You must have been taking
Schlafstrank, though I had no idea it had been so long in existence.”
“And, pray, what is Schlafstrank, and what are its uses?” I asked,
whereupon I was told that Schlafstrank was an essence, discovered in the
year 2239, by Ada of Garretville, while Senior Lecturer in Chemistry for
that year. The uses to which this essence was devoted was to put people
to sleep for a longer or a shorter period of time, according to the
quantity inhaled or swallowed. While under the influence of Schlafstrank
any amount of pain could be borne without causing the subject of it any
real inconvenience, since no sense of pain or bodily suffering was
conveyed to the sleeping mind.
Thus if, in unusual exception to the rule of perfect health which
prevailed here, some dangerous or painful disease overtook any of the
children of the State, be they old or young, they were subject to the
influence of Schlafstrank, and then dosed or operated upon until the
disease was conquered. In this way did New Amazonians avoid suffering,
and it struck me as marvellous to picture them as the subjects of an
accident resulting in a few broken limbs, and being unconscious of any
inconvenience arising therefrom during the processes of setting and
recovery. I was told that Schlafstrank produced no deleterious effect
upon the body, although repeated doses were given, if the patient’s mind
threatened to awake before complete recovery of the body had set in.
One thing mystified me exceedingly. I was told that Schlafstrank was not
invented until the year 2239, and naturally asked what year this was
supposed to be. No doubt there was ample room for amusement on both
sides when I positively averred that the year 1889 was not yet at an
end, and Hilda insisted just as positively that this was the year 2472.
Not a little to my surprise, an attendant knocked at the door, and
presented me with a parcel, with the words “From the Mother.”
“The Mother?”, I queried, and Hilda, pitying my ignorance, informed me
that the State was the Mother of her people, and that no doubt the
parcel contained a suitable outfit for me. On opening the parcel, I
found the latter surmise to be correct, and I was eased of the last
remnant of embarrassment I might have entertained at the idea of
encroaching upon the hospitality of others, by being informed that it
was considered a personal honour for any individual member of the State
to be permitted to dispense the Mother’s hospitality to all comers.
No stranger was permitted to seek private hospitality, but was provided,
at the behest and expense of the Mother, with everything necessary for
comfort while in New Amazonia.
I suggested that if this were generally known, the country was in danger
of being over-run by loafers and adventurers of all nations.
This argument was met by the information that no strangers were
permitted to land except such as showed good reason for their advent.
If, by any chance, a person obtained access to the country who was
inclined to abuse its hospitality, she or he was subjected to a course
of labour which more than sufficed to pay expenses, and was then
promptly expelled, one of the numerous fleet of trading steamers which
New Amazonia now possessed being used as a means of transport to the
culprit’s own country.
Hilda’s duties were not quite completed, but she told me that if I would
induct myself in my new garments during her absence, she would return to
me as soon as possible, and that she was deputed to inform me that
Principal Grey and Professor Wise were prepared to escort me on a tour
round the city, if I cared to go.
_Es geht ohne sagen_ that I jumped at the offer, metaphorically
speaking, and that I exerted myself to the utmost to transform my
outward semblance by wasting no time ere I changed my own attire for the
National costume a bountiful State had placed at my disposal. I availed
myself of a marble bath which Hilda had shown me, and even half resolved
to sacrifice my hair, in my desire to make myself as less like an oddity
as possible.
The clothes proved a good fit, if the term could be applied to garments
whose chief beauty consisted in the absolute freedom from constraint
which they exercised over the body. I noticed one omission, which I was
inclined to regret. No graceful sash formed part of my outfit, and I
learnt afterwards that none but natives of the soil, or formally adopted
immigrants, were permitted to adorn themselves with this distinctive
National badge.
I was very much relieved when, on the return of Hilda, she pronounced me
to be so passable as to be sure to escape the annoyance of being
conspicuously Ancient looking, my diminutive stature being now the only
specially noticeable feature about me, provided my hair could be hidden.
Upon trial, my new velvet cap proved too inadequate a means of securing
the desired end, and, with something akin to a pang, I must confess, I
empowered Hilda to deprive me of what I had hitherto been taught to
regard as woman’s glory.
No sooner, however, was I bereft of all superabundant tresses, than I
decided that the men who have from time to time so zealously exhorted
women to wear their hair long, have done it from an innate conviction
that the practice was debilitating and inconvenient, and therefore
likely to prove an invaluable aid in the final subjugation of woman.
Unlike Samson of old, I rejoiced in my newly acquired lack of hirsute
adornment, and went on my way rejoicing.
I also found locomotion so much easier in my new attire, that the marble
stairs had no terrors for me, and the interest I felt in all I saw
proved a powerful incentive to exertion. I was not sorry to find that we
were to be fortified with another meal before starting on our exploring
expedition. As at the previous meal, there was no animal food, but the
fare was scientifically perfect, and calculated to appeal powerfully to
the senses by its appetising odour and appearance. Three meals per diem
proved to be the rule here, and I observed that, compared to their
physique, the appetites of the New Amazonians seemed to be very
moderate. This was no doubt due to the fact that every item of food
consumed was of such a nature that it at once supplied all the wants of
the body, and that all indigestible or innutritive foods had long ago
been banished from New Amazonian regimen as injurious on account of the
useless waste of bodily force entailed in digesting or assimilating
them.
I was, however, glad to find that tea was not condemned as entirely
useless, and I thoroughly enjoyed this third and last meal of the day,
after which I was taken out to explore posthumous Dublin, now called
Andersonia. Once, when paying a flying visit to St. Petersburg, I was
much struck by the large scale upon which all the principal streets and
buildings were planned, and when I arrived in London, not very long
after this, I felt positively relieved at the sight of the comparatively
narrow and dingy London streets and buildings, and the sense of glare
and unreality which made itself palpable in St. Petersburg promptly
vanished in the atmosphere of London smoke.
Yellow-ochred palaces, lime-washed theatres, golden domes, and gaudy
blue and white and gilt churches appealed less to my fancy than did the
solid stone beauties of London architecture, grimy though they might be.
In looking upon Andersonia I was forcibly reminded of both the cities
just mentioned. There were the same large, open squares, revealing
broad, avenue-lined streets planned with mathematical exactitude, and
the same huge buildings that I had noticed in St. Petersburg. But there
was also the same solidity, freedom from glare, and honesty of
composition, which roused my admiration when looking upon some of
London’s magnificent stone buildings. Here, however, were examples of
architecture such as I had never before seen the like of for
magnificence, and it was no detriment to their beauty that they were
unsullied by smoke or dirt.
This seemed a very large city, and must have contained a numerous
population, yet not one smoking chimney did I see. The weather was
delightfully mild, but of course heat was necessary for cooking. In my
ideas, a fire was just as necessarily associated with smoke, and I
expressed my surprise at its evident absence. Considerably to my
astonishment, I had some difficulty in making myself understood, but, in
the end, mutual enlightenment was the result of our confabulations.
Electricity was made so thoroughly subservient to human will that it
supplied light, heat, and powers of volition, besides being made to
perform nearly every conceivable domestic use. So well were the elements
analysed and understood here that thunderstorms were unknown, and the
force which yearly used to slay numbers of people was now attracted,
cooped, and subjugated to human necessities.
The skies were unclouded, the air delightfully bracing, the atmosphere
so clear and pure that I wondered if some strange change had not
occurred to my eyesight, since I could see miles and miles of fair
country, lovely villages, and populous towns, whichever way I looked.
Smoke was an imponderable quantity here, by virtue of the
smoke-consuming apparati fixed in every dwelling, which permitted not
even the destruction by fire of the household refuse which was daily
committed to the furnace, to sully the purity of the atmosphere.
I enquired if fires were frequent here, and was told that in the
manufacture or adaption of every material in use, either for building
purposes, or for decorative and personal application, there was
incorporated a substance which rendered it impervious to fire, and
practically indestructible.
There was not the slightest noise of traffic in the streets, such as I
had always been accustomed to hear in either large or small towns. On
each side of every street there was a double means of locomotion
provided. Water cars abounded, and by way of proving their comfort and
efficiency to me, the two women who escorted me took their seats in one
of them, and, somewhat nervously, I followed their example.
In another moment I noticed houses and streets fly past us with magical
rapidity, but this phenomenon ceased almost immediately, and I looked
through the glass sides of the car upon a totally new scene. Dublin Bay,
in all its glorious beauty, lay unfolded to my vision. But I was hardly
able to appreciate it at that moment, for I was possessed by the idea
that I was under the influence of magic.
The magic subsequently resolved itself into a marvellous adaptation of
hydraulic force. It was our car, not the houses, which had been flying
with electric speed. Yet so noiseless, and so apparently motionless had
we been that the illusion was perfect, and I seemed not to have moved.
The pressure of an electric button stopped a car instantaneously, and at
the same time prevented any succeeding car from passing a given point
until all obstruction ahead was removed.
These stoppages lasted only an infinitesimally short time, for all the
cars, whether for passenger or goods traffic, were pulled up to the
inner barrier of the double roadway, leaving a clear course for all cars
which were still pursuing their journey.
I could not see any water, but was told that the whole traffic of the
country was run upon these electric hydraulic ways, and that water had
been found so noiseless, so frictionless, so economical, and so superior
in every way to the locomotive railways formerly in use as to supersede
the latter a few hundred years ago. “Puffing Billy” in fact was now only
a memory. The first line of one of Dagonet’s ballads, “Billy’s dead and
gone to glory,” came to my mind as applicable to the motive force which
in my own days was considered impossible to beat.
His knell was sounded, when there appeared a rival on the scene who
brought neither noise, dirt, vibration, nor smoke in her train.
Accidents were of almost impossible occurrence on the hydraulic roads, I
was told, and ordinary street traffic was not interfered with by these
roads, as they were constructed upon elevated platforms.
All persons using them paid a certain sum for the privilege. The State
had entire control of the waterways, and derived considerable revenues
from them, after paying all expenses, and remunerating the thousands of
people who were employed upon them. The remotest part of New Amazonia
could, I was told, be reached in twenty minutes, at small cost, as the
waterway system scarcely left a village untouched.
I was initiated in many wonders that night, being not the least
interested by an inspection of the many strange objects to be seen in
the shop windows, and by the universal good humour and happiness which
seemed to illumine every face I met. My guides proved themselves to be
admirable and patient cicerones. Fortunately for me, they recognised
that my physical capabilities were greatly inferior to their own, and
did not quite drag me about until I was tired to death.
So far, I was highly satisfied with my adventures in New Amazonia, and
when I retired to rest in the luxurious bed provided for me, I slept
soundly and healthily until Hilda awoke me, and told me that it was time
to get a bath, and dress for breakfast.