Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/242

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238
MEDA:

use until you got into shallow water that must of necessity be near the rocks, the great source of the danger you wished to avoid. In fact, your would-be wise naval architects designed vessels that had to seek shallow and therefore dangerous waters to enable them to use the miserable contrivances to which they had to trust for a chance of safety; whereas, we come to anchor anywhere in any depth of water in an instant. But we must not wait here longer. Let us go on board." He led me down to a landing stage where lay a number of little boats, such as I previously described as having seen spinning about the lakes. He got into one of these directing me to follow. I did so, sitting down in the bow, while he was seated in the stern. He took up two small knobs at the ends of lines like tiller lines, one in each hand, and the little craft immediately seemed literally to bound forward. I had at first to hold on to the seat to prevent my body jumping right back into the Recorder's face, but I soon got accustomed to the rapid motion, and was able to