HERE BEGINS THE HISTORY OF HESPEROS.
Of the shining city of Lucetta—How Dr. Van Varken met an apparent
Yahoo—Of the great astonishment of the citizens at sight of the
Doctor, and how they gave him in charge to a committee of
three—How the committee learned the Dutch tongue, and showed the
Doctor sundry strange and wonderful maps.
On recovering consciousness I found myself lying on what felt like soft
grass on the steep side of a mountain. The sky was intensely dark, no
stars were visible, and, of course, there was no moon. Before me, at a
considerably lower elevation, and, as well as I could judge, at a
distance of four or five miles, I saw what had the appearance of a very
brilliantly illuminated city; the illumination was such as no artificial
light known on earth could approach in splendour. So strong was it, that
even at the distance of the place where I was sitting its effect was
quite visible in lighting the hill. In front of the city was a large
sheet of water, and on it were many moving bodies, probably ships, all
of them lighted with the same strange radiance which pervaded the city.
I looked at my watch, and, as might have been expected, I found that it
still marked thirty-seven minutes past ten. I had stupidly forgotten
that, during disintegration, the machinery could not have worked, so I
was unable to verify my computation of the time required for the
transit. The mercury in the thermometer quickly moved up to eighty-six
degrees.
I judged it best to stay where I was till daylight, especially as I saw
some traces of dawn appearing in a quarter of the sky which I hence
concluded to be the east. I awaited the coming day with great eagerness,
and, I admit, with some anxiety, for it would be hard to say what
reception I might meet with. This much was plain—the planet was not
destitute of some forms of life, and I had escaped the detestable
Yahoos.
But, as the reader will soon learn, my conclusion was over-hasty. As the
light gradually increased I began to make out at first the main
features, and soon the minuter details of the landscape. The sloping
ground on which I had landed formed the base of a high mountain. Dense
forests concealed the summit; the lower part, on which I was sitting,
was covered with soft short grass, and trees, most of them bearing some
sort of fruit, were here and there scattered about. A few yards below me
the steepness of the slope eased off into a gentle descent, and the
mountain finally terminated on the shore of a deep bay of clear and
still water. At the end of this bay lay the city which shone so brightly
in the night; it was about five miles from my landing-place, and, as I
afterwards learned, was called Lucetta. The opposite shore of the bay,
which was nearly ten miles wide, was occupied by a lofty range of peaked
mountains. The temperature was high, but by no means intolerable, and
the air was perfectly still.
I saw no traces of any habitation outside the city, and no signs of
animal life, excepting birds, were anywhere visible, but of the birds
there were many and lovely kinds. I was greatly struck by the appearance
of the sky; this was completely covered with a canopy of white cloud,
seemingly at an enormous elevation. I was very desirous to get a sight
of the sun, and, if possible, to measure its apparent magnitude, which I
knew must greatly exceed its appearance from the earth; but the
thickness of the cloud was such that no trace of the disk was visible. I
had hoped, by this means, to satisfy myself that I had really reached
Hesperos, namely, by comparing the observed magnitude with that which I
had computed, and noted on a leaf of my pocket-book before I left
Thibet. So I waited another hour, but seeing no signs of movement among
the clouds, and despairing of getting an observation, I got up and
walked down the hill in the direction of the city.
Presently the great steepness of the slope abated, and I soon arrived at
a wide and smooth track which ran along the shore of the bay. The
country was quite open; there were no walls, hedges, or any kind of
fences—not even any of those notice-boards so familiar to the wanderer
in civilized terrestrial regions, which address him by the name of
Trespasser, and convey menaces. I turned into the road, in the direction
of the city, and, after proceeding along it for about half a mile, I
descried, at some distance, an approaching object, which, to my
unspeakable horror, had all the look of a Yahoo.
As we came nearer the suspicion became a certainty. The creature was
walking very slowly, and seemed to be quite absorbed in contemplation of
a small article which he held in his hand. He was a man of middle age,
with an exceedingly intelligent cast of countenance, and his dress did
not materially differ from the Eastern costume which had accompanied me
from Thibet.
So I could not at all account for the extreme intensity of his
astonishment when, at last raising his eyes, he got the first sight of
me as I walked towards him. He seemed completely paralyzed, gasped for
breath, and for several moments was quite incapable of speech. Such
utter stupefaction might have been manifested by the inhabitants of
Lilliput and Brobdingnag when they first beheld Captain Gulliver, but in
the present case there was no apparent cause for amazement. At length he
recovered himself sufficiently to address a few words to me, none of
which I could understand. I replied, but with the like want of success.
I pointed to the sky, to intimate that I had come from another world,
and then to the city, as a hint that I wished to go there. Both of these
signs he evidently understood, and he turned back, and accompanied me in
silence. I must do my companion, and indeed all the Venusians (or
Hesperians) I have encountered, the justice of admitting that, though in
Yahoo form, they possess none of the offensive peculiarities of the
breed.
We had not gone very far before we overtook a young girl of exceedingly
prepossessing aspect, walking towards the city. She too, on seeing me,
appeared to be struck with the same overwhelming and stupefying
astonishment which had produced so great an effect on my first
acquaintance. I could not understand it at all. There was nothing in the
personal appearance of either the man or the girl which struck _me_ as
extremely unusual. Why, then, should I be so extraordinarily wonderful
in their eyes?
When we came up with the girl the man stopped, and they talked in a very
excited manner for some minutes. While they were so occupied it occurred
to me that something very remarkable might have happened in the
reintegration of my body on arrival at the surface of the planet. I
might, for all I knew, be suffering from some grotesque distortion of
features, or other bodily misfortune. But no, that was not the cause of
their wonder, for, as the road ran close along the shore, I took the
opportunity of surveying myself in the clear water, and the reflection
showed, beyond all possibility of doubt, that there was nothing whatever
astray with my personal appearance.
Presently, hearing a slight noise behind me, I looked back, and saw a
vehicle on its way to the city approaching us. It was running swiftly,
although there were no horses attached, nor any visible motive power;
the wheels ran on two steel rods which I had before noticed lying
parallel to each other on the road. As soon as the vehicle reached the
spot where we were standing it stopped at once, and the man and the girl
making signs to me to get into it, I did so. In the vehicle were about a
dozen people, of various adult ages, the youngest seemingly about twenty
years old, the eldest about sixty. They were of both sexes, and, with
one consent, they all, old and young, male and female alike, received me
with the same intense, and, as it seemed to me, needless amazement as
the first man and girl had shown.
The vehicle resumed its course and ran on swiftly and with exceeding
smoothness into the city. It was easy to see that I was the exclusive
theme of the eager and excited discourse of the passengers. Their manner
was very friendly, but their astonishment showed no signs of abating. A
few minutes sufficed to bring us to the end of our journey. The car ran
through a long and wide street, bordered on each side with rows of
splendid trees. Through their foliage the houses were visible. Each
house was separated from its neighbour by an interval of several yards;
was but one story in height; and, so far as I was able to judge from a
hasty glance in rapid passage, was very elaborately and tastefully
ornamented. It was plain that land was abundant, and ground rents, if
any, were trifling.
We soon reached our destination—a large open space in the middle of the
town. This great square was surrounded by stately public buildings, some
of them being of considerable elevation. One of these was especially
striking on account of its gorgeous magnificence. It had all the look of
a vast cathedral, and the roll of deep-toned music, much resembling the
tones of a powerful and curiously sweet organ, issuing from the open
portals, served to heighten the illusion. Though still early morning,
many people were about in the square, and, as soon as we alighted from
the car, I saw the faces of all the bystanders assume the same look of
bewildered astonishment which all who had yet seen me so needlessly put
on.
From all sides the people came running together; but there was no
crowding or pressure; the multitude were most orderly, and seemed quite
friendly in their demeanour; but it was plain that, for some mysterious
reason, my arrival indicated a crisis in the history of the city. At
last a young man, who appeared to be in a position of authority, mounted
a low flight of steps which led up to the building before which the
vehicle had stopped, and addressed a short speech to the assembled
people. The crowd at once dispersed, and three persons came forward and
took me in charge.
Two of these were men, one of them elderly, the other of middle age; the
third of these custodians, as I had to consider them, was a very
beautiful girl, seemingly about twenty years old. The countenances of
all three were characterized by marks of extreme intelligence; and each
of them had a peculiar look which is common to all the Hesperians I have
seen, and which I can no otherwise describe than as a look indicative of
immense and profound knowledge. These three persons, as I afterwards
learned, were appointed by the man in authority as a sort of commission
to take charge of me, and endeavour to ascertain what I was, whence I
came, and whither I was going. The real cause of the intensity of the
wonder which I excited everywhere will be explained farther on.
The elder man made signs to me to walk up the steps, and enter the large
building beside us, which I did, the others following. The steps led up
to a spacious hall, from which long corridors branched out in various
directions. One of the men inquired by gesture-language if I wished for
food. As I was by this time exceedingly hungry, I replied, in the same
way, that I was quite ready for my breakfast. Whereupon they brought me
to a room which opened into one of the corridors, where, on turning a
handle in the wall, a sliding panel opened, and a table on rollers
passed through. Various kinds of meats and drinks were on the table, and
of these they invited me to partake. I made a hearty meal. I noticed, in
particular, respecting some of the dishes, that they greatly resembled
in taste various kinds of flesh-meat, very delicately cooked, but they
were totally different in appearance from anything of the sort ever
served up on earth.
I observed also that my three keepers did everything in their power to
induce me to give the names, in my language, of every object in sight.
The girl had a sort of small memorandum book, in which, with a fine
pencil, she constantly wrote, in what seemed a system of shorthand, the
words and sentences I uttered; and she and the two men repeated them
articulately several times. They gave me the idea that they were much
more anxious to learn my language than to teach me theirs. In fact, I
afterwards learned that this was part of the instructions they had
received respecting me.
As soon as I had finished my breakfast they took me into a large room,
which opened into another corridor, and was hung round with all sorts of
charts. Among these I saw, to my intense astonishment, a large circular
map, about sixteen feet in diameter, on which, depicted with singular
accuracy, were the well-known outlines of the continents and larger
islands of the eastern hemisphere of the earth. The immense white masses
at the poles, the blue colour of the southern and Indian oceans, the
yellow tinge of the Great Sahara and Asiatic deserts were especially
prominent objects. The process by which this wonderful map was made was
afterwards fully explained to me. It was what they called a sun-picture
taken by the help of an enormous telescope in one of the national
mountain observatories, of which I learned much more afterwards.
They showed me several other equally excellent charts of the earth,
exhibiting different portions of her surface. All of these were taken
when she was in opposition, and therefore were all on the same scale.
The committee showed great delight when I intimated my acquaintance with
the details of the charts; inasmuch as this was a sufficiently clear
proof of the place from which I came. I pronounced, as distinctly as I
could, the names of the continents, seas, and principal islands,
indicating, at the same time, by pointing them out, the localities
named. All of these words they repeated as before; and the girl took
them down in her rapid shorthand.
The extraordinary quickness with which these three Hesperians acquired
the language of Holland would not be easily credited by an inhabitant of
the earth. Still it is a fact that, by the simple process of constantly
conversing with me, and recording every word I spoke to them, in little
more than a week all the three could speak our language with great
fluency; while I, who had a great facility for learning foreign tongues,
had acquired only a few words and elementary sentences of the Hesperian
speech. This training in our language was by no means confined to the
three members of the committee. Each morning the results of the day’s
conversation were faithfully reported in the Hesperian journals from the
girl’s memoranda; and the whole population of the city engaged with
heart and soul in the study of Hollandish—plainly with the intention of
putting themselves as quickly as possible in the way of getting an
explanation of my astounding appearance among them.