On the Kaolian Road
How Thurid and Matai Shang were to land I could not imagine, though later I was to learn that to the level of the forest top there rises in each city of Kaol a slender watchtower which guards the Kaolians by day and by night against the secret approach of a hostile fleet. To one of these the hekkador of the Holy Therns had no difficulty in approaching, and by its means the party was safely lowered to the ground.
As Woola and I approached the bottom of the declivity the ground became soft and mushy, so that it was with the greatest difficulty that we made any headway whatever.
Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fernlike fronds grew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.
Myriad creepers hung festooned in graceful loops from tree to tree, and among them were several varieties of the Martian "man-flower," whose blooms have eyes and hands with which to see and seize the insects which form their diet.
The repulsive calot tree was, too, much in evidence. It is a carnivorous plant of about the bigness of a large sagebrush such as dots our
[ 89 ]
