Life in a Thousand Worlds/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
A Visit to the Moon.
WAS not prepared for the quick transit to our satellite, nor for the views thrust upon me so suddenly. Before I could well collect my thoughts I found myself in the immediate vicinity of the Moon and, strange as it may seem, I was conscious of my surroundings and knew that I had power to transport myself instantly to any place I might wish to go.
To see the Moon face to face gives a charming satisfaction which can never be realized two hundred and forty thousand miles away. I was conscious of my privilege and was determined to take all possible advantage of it.
Now how differently everything appeared from the views I had snatched through the telescope while yet on the Earth. I could not see the "Man in the Moon," whose grinning face had so often looked down upon me, but from my first point of observation everything looked as if life had never existed there and, consequently, I was about to conclude that no human beings inhabit the Moon. This theory soon vanished, for after I had traveled over a hundred miles I came to a thriving center of population, the largest city on the sphere, inhabited by more than sixty thousand rational beings.
These creatures resemble us most strongly in their mental capacities, though their bodies are out of harmony with ours, having three eyes and no nose. The third eye is situated in the center of the forehead, and the other two more toward the sides of the head.
Life is not sustained by breathing a gaseous air as we do, so that the sense of smell is performed by the protruded upper lip. At the voluntary effort to catch scent the upper lip noticeably rolls upward into a partial scroll.
I was anxious to learn how the life of these Moonites is sustained without breathing and, to my astonishment, I learned that they eat solid air at intervals of about six hours. This is not taken in connection with the regular food, but is eaten alone and carried into a separate stomach wherein it is disintegrated by the chemical action of the stomachic acids. The gases thus formed serve the same purpose as the air we breathe into our lungs.
According to the conjectures of some earthly astronomers I was expecting to see a race of immense giants. On the contrary, I found that these Moonites grow to only about one-fourth our height, but possess fully three-fourths as much circumference of body. Notwithstanding that they are so short and rotund, they are healthy and exceedingly quick in all their bodily movements.
No doubt I shall be chided for saying that these Moon-inhabitants are a handsome people, but I was enabled to judge them by a universal standard of beauty, and I looked upon them as a product of the same infinite Creator who fashioned our mortal bodies with such marvelous adaptation of means to end.
One thing is sure, were a person from the Moon to set foot upon our planet, he would estimate us to be as far out of harmony with his standards of beauty as we should consider him to be out of harmony with ours.
As might be expected, these people are very peculiar in their habits. There is a small percentage of the population who are bright stars intellectually, while others are extremly indolent. When a person wins a record for laziness, it is said of him: "He is too lazy to eat his air."
The large city to which I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials.
The window panes are not made of a brittle substance like glass, but resemble mica, except that they are more tough and durable. These Moonites are wiser than we in roofing their houses. They have discovered a mineral composition which in its plastic state is daubed over the roof. This, upon hardening, is proof against all conditions of weather and never needs replacing.
There are many striking features in their architecture. In general, it may be said that they are quite far advanced in constructive ability. Some of their larger buildings look like soldiers' forts, others resemble immense bee hives, while still others appear like odd-shaped synagogues.
We are their superiors in almost every line, especially in our knowledge and use of electricity and photography, and also in our manufacturing and scientific skill. However, they have decidedly surpassed us in imitative and creative art.
Their paintings express so accurately the emotions of the heart that I found myself in tears as I saw their masterpieces. For a time I forgot that I was on the Moon, so lost was I in elevated reflections all suggested by their art creations. How I wished that I could have taken some of these specimens with me!
From the Moon our Earth looks like a large wagon-wheel hanging in the heavens. It is amusing to learn of the various opinions and superstitions that are held regarding this wagon-wheel world. Some of the Moonites declare that it is a huge lantern, hung solely for their benefit, and scoff at the idea that it might be a world inhabited by civilized beings. More intelligent Moonites venture the theory that human life could exist on the great wagon-wheel, but declare that this is quite improbable, as the whole planet is enveloped by some thick, smoky substance in which they believe it would be impossible for human life to exist. Some look upon the Earth as the mother of the Moon, and regard the Sun as the father. This sex idea runs through most of their heathen religion, and there are more who worship the Earth and the Sun than there are who worship the God who created these heavenly bodies.
I prolonged my investigations without becoming visible, taking note of numberless facts of interest which will ever be a source of pleasure and value to me. At length, however, I concluded to take advantage of a privilege and power I possessed and, becoming visible, I entered a quiet room in the presence of a very distinguished man. He was by far the most highly educated person on the Moon.
I was more surprised than he, for I expected that he would be greatly agitated at my unaccountable appearance. Imagine my surprise when he sat motionless, gazing firmly into my face which to him was out of harmony with all ideas of correct form.
I was the first to speak, and although he had manifested outwardly such self possession, I soon learned that it was a mere show of stoicism in the presence of one whom he thought to be a spirit. In an incredibly short time we were on easy speaking terms and I was gaining the object of my visit.
Among the many things of interest that I learned from this famous character were facts concerning the history of the Moon. According to the information he gave me, I figured that human life had existed on the Moon thousands of years before its appearance on the Earth. Scientifically I could not account for this on any other ground than that the Moon, being a much smaller orb, cooled off sufficiently to sustain life on its surface long before any form of life could exist on our Earth.
The Moonities of the old era were a prosperous and progressive people, far outshining their successors who now occupy the sphere. After making history for several thousand years, the human race had grown to one hundred million in numbers, and civilization had reached a surprising degree of perfection.
In those long-ago ages the Moon was a much more fertile garden than now. Luxury and refinement were enjoyed by the favored sons of that period, and no one dreamed of the horrible fate that was to sweep practically the whole race into the regions of death. My intelligent informer used excessive language in trying to picture the unequaled catastrophe that put an end to the old era.
My interest was unbounded, and with awed breath I continued listening as he described the cause of this great and terrible cataclysm.
"It all occurred about five thousand years ago," he said "The Moon was shaken by subterraneous rumblings, followed by fiery ejections, covering a period of nearly one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions. Whole cities were ruined, fertile valleys covered and human life was almost annihilated." I knew what my informant meant by "one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions." This would be a period of about forty days and nights of earthly time. Do you wonder that my mind flew back to the forty days and nights of rain that destroyed, at one time! on our Earth, the whole human family, except the few who were saved in the ark?
"What are the evidences of this horrible world-ending?" I asked.
"They are on every hand. Have you not yet seen the vast craters, the mountains of barren cinder, the stumps of immense pillars, partly excavated? All this, and very much more, silently unfolds a tale of horror that can be faintly pictured only by the imagination. Think of a holocaust so terrible that one hundred million human creatures are thereby swept into death in the narrow compass of forty days! The records that have been brought down to us by the few survivors indicate the continual wails of horror rending the sky while the volcanic disturbances continued. Thousands and millions ran from place to place to find shelter from the storm of fire. At one place the surface would open and at another the lava would run. Fate, with a merciless hand, was dragging each one into one or another of the inevitable pits."
"How many were saved?" I asked with deepening interest.
"Parts of only eight families aggregating nineteen human beings."
"And how many people are on the Moon now?"
"Almost forty million."
"How do you account for this slow growth?" I asked after I had explained that on our globe a much larger number of inhabitants sprang from a smaller number than nineteen in a shorter period of time.
This allusion cost me much explanation and, after I had selfishly brushed his rising questions aside, I learned that large companies of the Moonites had been swept into death by frequent volcanic outbursts all along the line of the centuries.
No one can estimate my interest as I continued the conversation. But finally I decided to stroll through certain parts of the city and, thinking it advisable to give no notice of my departure, I suddenly vanished from his sight. However, before leaving the room I observed that my bewildered auditor conjectured for a long time and reached his former conclusion that he had been in touch with an apparition.
Again I resumed my visible form and walked along one of the principal streets of the city. What novel sights greeted my eyes on every side! One cannot well imagine what excitement I aroused. Citizens who first saw me lifted their flabby arms in terror and ran to the city Bizen, a place where every inhabitant, under oath, is obliged to carry special news before communicating it elsewhere.
In a very short time the city Plins, or in our language, city authorities, were coming toward me in their costly vehicles. They were preceded, however, by what we would call a body guard. Imagine their surprise to hear me shout at the top of my voice, which sounded to them as thunder would to us: "You need not fear, I will do you no harm!"
My voice had a magical effect on the
Visiting a City on the Moon.
assembling host of pigmies. They looked at me with as much curiosity as I looked at them. I stepped over their heads but was careful not to trample on the children who scampered at my approach. If one could ship a car load of these children to the Earth, they would make excellent dolls, for they range in size from only six to ten inches. Finally, I sat on the roof of one of their lower buildings to watch the gathering of the multitudes and study their curious countenances.
Some of the more educated, seeing that I was peacefully inclined, ventured close to my knees and then looked the more intently into my face, all of which was agreeable, as it enabled me to get a still closer view of their faces.
I saw that the whole city was turning out, and I wondered how the alarm could have been given so speedily. Upon inquiry, a fine artist at my side tremblingly explained that the Bizen wires had been touched for block six. This meant that every house in the city had received notice of an unusual occurrence in that section, I resolved to learn more of this system and how it was operated without the aid of electricity.
Now I was besieged by a pressing host. At once I commenced to speak in Moon dialect I told them whence I came, pointing to the large wagon-wheel that hung in their heavens. After a short discourse, I invited questions.
One of their leaders stepped nearer to me and acted as the spokesman of the crowd. His language and voice were of excellent quality and although visibly agitated, he bore himself with commendable dignity. Let me here translate our conversation into English.
"How came you here?" asked he.
"That I cannot explain."
"Did you walk or run?"
"I did neither."
Surrendering this line of inquiry, he went on to ask the following questions:
"Are there more creatures than you where you came from?"
"Large cities full of them."
"Are they smaller than you?"
"Their average height equals mine." "It must be a ponderous world of immense giants beyond the comprehension of any inhabitant of our whole globe."
"But just as I appear large to you, you appear unnaturally small to me," I calmly added.
"How came that lump in the middle of your face?"
I knew the questioner referred to my nose. I took a good wholesome laugh, and the large concourse of people watched my wrinkling face with strange delight. The Moonites express all their emotions by exclamations and almost infinite variations of the lower lip in conjunction with their three eyes.
I told the spokesman that the lump on my face was called "nose," using our pronunciation, and that it grew there by nature and not by accident. I also informed him that each person in our world had such a nose, at which much merriment ensued. Lips twitched and quivered, as their eyes blinked and rolled. It seemed to me like a hideous way to laugh, but no doubt my nose seemed just as hideous to them.
Then I explained all about our dense atmosphere, the part that air played in our life, and what a fine convenience the nose is during eating and speaking. Of course all this was unintelligible to them.
I then busied myself in ascertaining the secret of their signal system. I learned, much to my surprise, that with scarcely any knowledge of electricity the Moonites had long ago discovered a means of communication which is somewhat similar to our wireless telegraphy. From central stations messages are transmitted to sensitive metal rods set up on each house-top, somewhat like the lightning rods that decorate house-tops on my own Earth. I also learned that a very thin atmosphere is prevalent on the Moon, and that this rare medium is more suited to their wireless telegraphy than our heavier atmosphere would be with its different composition.
I soon learned that great excitement was prevailing throughout the adjacent villages. Wireless telegraphy carried the news, and from all directions throngs were pressing toward the city. Furthermore I saw that the noted personage with whom I had spent a quiet season was now making his way toward me. Not wishing to hold further conversation with him, and desiring to escape the ever-rising tide of curious questioners, I once more became invisible and proceeded to study the physical phenomena of the Moon.
I now saw that everything bore evidence to the fearful havoc of volcanic eruptions that had laid waste so large a portion of the Moon's surface. The people live in the remaining fertile belts and patches of land which are fortunately scattered in rich profusion over the greater portion of the surface, reminding one of productive oases in the deserts of our world.
Here and there, in stately museums, are stored the relics of the old glorious civilization. At a few of these places I tarried to study the achievements of a people who flourished five thousand years ago, at a time when the civilization of our world was yet young. What an interest lay wrapped up in the time-worn relics! Naturally I thought of Pompeii as I was viewing the antique treasures that had been brought to light from their old graves of ashes, cinder and lava. In some of these specimens I saw glimpses of inventions that have never been reproduced on the Moon and never known on our Earth.
Onward I moved to take my last views of the Moon. For ragged and jagged cliffs of almost total barrenness, and yawning chasms lined with intolerable precipices, the Moon outrivals the Earth. I took a passing glimpse of the famous crater-mountains, called by our astronomers Copernicus and Theophilus, the former situated in the eastern and the latter in the western hemisphere of the Moon. The largest openings of our Earth dwindle into insignificance compared with such stupendous marvels of natural scenery.
Many similar places I visited, but I spent my last hours on the Moon in the presence of that gigantic chasm called Newton, where I was thrilled with feelings of sublimity as never before. Outstretched lay the immense opening, nearly one hundred and fifty miles long and about seventy miles broad. It was fearful to gaze into it, for my eye stretched downward mile after mile until it reached the blackness of darkness. It frequently happens that a Moonite accidentally falls into this monster Newtonian chasm. Nothing more is ever seen or heard of him.
I shuddered as I peered into this gigantic opening whose gaping mouth could swallow Pike's Peak so that its highest point would be many thousands of feet below the surface. We have nothing on our Earth that can compare with this terribly imposing sight, and as I was studying the expansive waste I could more readily understand how large numbers of human beings could be destroyed by such fabulous quantities of boiling lava as were capable of being thrown from this pit. There is no doubt that the lava and ashes hurled from this crater alone would send a withering blast of death-dealing for many hundreds of miles around.
If you have never been privileged to look upon this ponderous chasm face to face, improve your first opportunity to get a glimpse of it through as powerful a telescope as possible.