Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/205

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Titan.
183

citadel enclosed in triple lines of fortifications. And there also were to be seen the seven sister-satellites, that followed like seven great planets, while beyond there were the planets we were wont to see in the heavens and our own world and earth now fading in the distance. Yet all were indistinct compared with the great system of Saturn around us.

We quitted this giant satellite before Titan had made a quarter revolution around his primary—the great belted and ringed world,—and plunged into the system itself, passing by four of the moons,—Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Enceladus,—until we came to the little world of Mimas, where we rested again.

I cannot describe the strange things of that world of Mimas. Earthly words depict only earthly things, or at best only things of nature akin to those of earth. But here there were other forms of development, other conditions of life, and other resultants than such as you find on earth. And yet, just as the minerals of that world were much the same as we have and as you have, though in quite strange combinations, so the elements of life were somewhat the same, though in the dull, imperfect light, less developed in their higher forms. One thing was singular, however, which I had not