once engaged, by our authorities in this matter, for the public account. It speaks volumes for the interworld courtesies of the time, that we had already so fully communicated all our discovery to Venus—in common, indeed, with the universe generally—as to enable our active neighbour and rival to challenge us, even, so to say, in our own proper wares. But the strain was full upon us for victory, and victory was our due reward. At the same time we were only just ahead. When we launched our ship for this first voyage to Venus, that of our rival was still on the stocks. But it descended thence within a few hours, and each vessel, crowded with its respective passengers, was then advancing towards the other with a speed of travel beyond all precedent. The two planets being then in comparatively near proximity, this first voyage was so much the shorter and less costly.
In spite of a strict look-out, neither party had detected the other, in passing upon the wide ether ocean—a fact which does not say much for the calculations of those primitive ether-navigation times, and compares strikingly with the precision nowadays. The voyage occupied either party about eight days, so that we were already in command of the higher speeds. Speed was already, in fact, mainly a question of courage, in facing, in this as yet unaccustomed way, the risks of the encounter of meteoric bodies—a danger from which, as previously remarked, we are now, by experience and a still more advanced science, better protected. This speed was, of course, vastly greater than that of our first lunar voyage; but, as we shall presently see, we can now do still better than that.
