Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/173

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The Feast .
151

describe. The Martians seemed a race full of energy and of high development. Many games of skill were going on, and as the young Martians cast off their garments, I saw that they were really not so entirely like men as they seemed when clothed. Their limbs were more muscular, and they had more hair about them than human beings. When clad as I said, they were extremely like men. Their heads were quite human in intelligence, but their lower limbs showed as much resemblance to the carnivora as the human limbs do to the quadrumana.

I passed from here into another hall—very splendid and ornate—where music was going on, and then into another, where a drama was being performed. Another hall was beyond, where science was expounded, and beyond this we came to a library with books. Everything showed that the Martians, though they had to work (as men have), still strove to make life pleasant. **** It is impossible for me to describe all the strange sights I beheld on Mars, while I traversed again, with my Martian friend, the oceans of this strange world. Earthly words are only fit for earthly things, and so are im-