hung a large chain, and a silver symbol of two triangles. On the chain I traced some of the well-known letters of the alphabet of the heavens. This cheered me. I at once saw that here was one with whom there might be a basis of communication. After greeting us, which he did solemnly, and with gestures evidently of a religious character, he seemed to welcome us as fellow-creatures called into being by the same Creator.
The thought struck me of a mode of communication. I drew from my vest a tablet, and wrote on it symbols in our hieroglyphic character expressing where I came from. With a little difficulty and some gesticulation, I made him understand our symbols, which expressed the sentence, "We, Aleriel, Arauniel, and Ezariel, come in the ether ship from the beautiful planet near the sun." When he understood what I had written, he said something to the other Martian, who expressed great astonishment and wonder. Then, having paused awhile, as if in thought, he drew from the fold of his robe a box, whence he took a sheet of a cloth-like texture, on which he traced in large and rude characters, in a system of celestial picture-writing, not the same as ours, but sufficiently like it to be intelligible to us:
