Across the Zodiac (28 page)

Four times during the revolution of the great circle each large clock
emits for a couple of minutes a species of chime, the nature of which
my ignorance of music renders me unable to describe:—viz., when the
line dividing the green and black semicircles is horizontal at noon
and midnight, and an hour before, at average sunrise and sunset, it
becomes perpendicular. The individual character of the several chimes,
tunes, or peals, whatever they should be called, is so distinct that
even I appreciated it. Further, as the first point of the coloured
strip distinguishing each several
zyda
reaches the golden indicator,
a single slightly prolonged sound—I fancy what is known on Earth as a
single chord—is emitted. Of these again each is peculiar, so that no
one with an ear for music can doubt what is the period of the day
announced. The sound is never, even in the immediate vicinity of the
clock, unpleasantly loud; while it penetrates to an amazing distance.
It would be perfectly easy, if needful, to regulate all clocks by
mechanical control through the electric network extended all over the
face of the planet; but the perfect accuracy of each individual
timepiece renders any such check needless. In those latitudes where
day and night during the greater part of the year are not even
approximately equal, the black and green semicircles are so enlarged
or diminished by mechanical means, that the hour of the day or night
is represented as accurately as on the Equator itself.

The examination of this establishment occupied us for two or three
hours, and when we remounted our carriage it seemed to me only
reasonable that Eveena should be weary both in mind and body. I
proposed, therefore, to return at once, but against this she earnestly
protested.

"Well," I said, "we will finish our excursion, then. Only remember
that whenever you do feel tired you must tell me at once. I do not
know what exertion you can bear, and of course it would be most
inconsiderate to measure your endurance by my own."

She promised, and we drove on for another hour in the direction of a
range of hills to the north-eastward. The lower and nearer portion of
this range might he 400 feet above the general level of the plain;
beyond, the highest peaks rose to perhaps 1500 feet, the average
summit being about half that height. Where our road brought us to the
foot of the first slope, large groves of the
calmyra
, whose fruit
contains a sort of floury pulp like roasted potato, were planted on
ground belonging to the State, and tenanted by young men belonging to
that minority which, as Esmo had told me not being fortunate enough to
find private employment, is thus provided for. Encountering one of
these, he pointed out to us the narrow road which, winding up the
slope, afforded means of bringing down in waggons during the two
harvest seasons, each of which lasts for about fifty days, the fruit
of these groves, which furnishes a principal article of food. The
trees do not reach to a higher level than about 400 feet; and above
this we had to ascend on foot by a path winding through meadows, which
I at first supposed to be natural. Eveena, however, quickly undeceived
me, pointing out the prevalence of certain plants peculiar to the
cultivated pastures we had seen in the plain. These were so
predominant as to leave no reasonable doubt that they had been
originally sown by the hand of man, though the irregularity of their
arrangement, and the encroachment of one species upon the ground of
another, enabled my companion to prove to me with equal clearness that
since its first planting the pasture had been entirely neglected. It
was, she thought, worth planting once for all with the most nutritious
herbage, but not worth the labour of subsequent close cultivation. Any
lady belonging to a civilised people, and accustomed to a country
life, upon Earth might easily have perceived all that Eveena
discovered; but considering how seldom the latter had left her home,
how few opportunities she had to see anything of practical
agriculture, the quickness of her perception and the correctness of
her inferences not a little surprised me. The path we pursued led
directly to the object of our visit. The waters of the higher hills
were collected in a vast tank excavated in an extensive plateau at the
mid-level. At the summit of the first ascent we met and were escorted
by one of the officials entrusted with the charge of these works,
which supply water of extraordinary purity to a population of perhaps
a quarter of a million, inhabiting a district of some 10,000 square
miles in extent. The tank was about sixty feet in depth, and perhaps a
mile in length, with half that breadth. Its sides and bottom-were
lined with the usual concrete. Our guide informed me that in many
cases tanks were covered with the crystal employed for doors and
windows; but in the-pure air of these hills such a precaution was
thought unnecessary, as it would have been exceedingly costly. The
water itself was of wonderful purity, so clear that the smallest
object at the bottom was visible where the Sun, still high in the
heavens, shone directly upon the surface. But this purity would by no
means satisfy the standard of Martial sanitary science. In the first
place, it is passed into a second division of the tank, where it is
subjected to some violent electric action till every kind of organic
germ it may contain is supposed to be completely destroyed. It is then
passed through several covered channels and mechanically or chemically
cleansed from every kind of inorganic impurity, and finally oxygenated
or aerated with air which has undergone a yet more elaborate
purification. At every stage in this process, a phial of water is
taken out and examined in a dark chamber by means of a beam of light
emanating from a powerful electric lamp and concentrated by a huge
crystal lens. If this beam detect any perceptible dust or matter
capable of scattering the light, the water is pronounced impure and
passed through further processes. Only when the contents of the bottle
remain absolutely dark, in the midst of an atmosphere whose floating
dust renders the beam visible on either side, so that the phial, while
perfectly transparent to the light, nevertheless interrupts the beam
with a block of absolute darkness, is it considered fit for human
consumption. It is then distributed through pipes of concrete, into
which no air can possibly enter, to cisterns equally, air-tight in
every house. The water in these is periodically examined by officers
from the waterworks, who ascertain that it has contracted no impurity
either in the course of its passage through hundreds of miles of
piping or in the cisterns themselves. The Martialists consider that to
this careful purification of their water they owe in great measure
their exemption from the epidemic diseases which were formerly not
infrequent. They maintain that all such diseases are caused by organic
self-multiplying germs, and laugh to scorn the doctrine of spontaneous
generation, either of disease, or of even such low organic life as can
propagate it. I suggested that the atmosphere itself must, if their
theory were true, convey the microscopic seeds of disease even more
freely and universally than the water.

"Doubtless," replied our guide, "it would scatter them more widely;
but it does not enable them to penetrate and germinate in the body
half so easily as when conveyed by water. You must be aware that the
lining of the upper air-passages arrests most of the impurities
contained in the inhaled air before it comes into contact with the
blood in the lungs themselves. Moreover, the extirpation of one
disease after another, the careful isolation of all infectious cases,
and the destruction of every article that could preserve or convey the
poisonous germs, has in the course of ages enabled us utterly to
destroy them."

This did not seem to me consistent with the confession that disorders
of one kind or another still not infrequently decimate their
highly-bred domestic animals, however the human race itself may have
been secured against contagion. I did not, however, feel competent to
argue the question with one who had evidently studied physiology much
more deeply than myself; and had mastered the records of an experience
infinitely longer, guided by knowledge far more accurate, than is
possessed by the most accomplished of Terrestrial physiologists.

The examination of these works of course occupied us for a long time,
and obliged us to traverse several miles of ground. More than once I
had suggested to Eveena that we should leave our work unfinished, and
on every opportunity had insisted that she should rest. I had been too
keenly interested in the latter part of the explanation given me, to
detect the fatigue she anxiously sought to conceal; but when we left
the works, I was more annoyed than surprised to find that the walk
down-hill to our carriage was too much for her. The vexation I felt
with myself gave, after the manner of men, some sharpness to the tone
of my remonstrance with her.

"I bade you, and you promised, to tell me as soon as you felt tired;
and you have let me almost tire you to death! Your obedience, however
strict in theory, reminds me in practice of that promised by women on
Earth in their marriage-vow—and never paid or remembered afterwards."

She did not answer; and finding that her strength was utterly
exhausted, I carried her down the remainder of the hill and placed her
in the carriage. During our return neither of us spoke. Ascribing her
silence to habit or fatigue, perhaps to displeasure, and busied in
recalling what I had seen and heard, I did not care to "make
conversation," as I certainly should have done had I guessed what
impression my taciturnity made on my companion's mind. I was heartily
glad for her sake when we regained the gate of her father's garden.
Committing the carriage to the charge of an ambâ, I half led, half
carried Eveena along the avenue, overhung with the grand conical
bells—gold, crimson, scarlet, green, white, or striped or variegated
with some or all these colours—of the glorious
leveloo
, the Martial
convolvulus. Its light clinging stems and foliage hid the
astyra's
arched branches overhead, and formed a screen on either side. From its
bells flew at our approach a whole flock of the tiny and beautiful
caree, which take the chief part in rendering to the flora of Mars
such services as the flowers of Earth receive from bees and
butterflies. They feed on the nectar, farina, syrup, and other
secretions, sweet or bitter, in which the artificial flowers of Mars
are peculiarly abundant, and make their nests in the calyx or among
the petals. These lovely little birds—about the size of a hornet, but
perfect birds in miniature, with wings as large as those of the
largest Levantine
papilio
, and feathery down equally fine and
soft—are perhaps the most shy and timid of all creatures familiar
with the presence of Martial humanity. The varied colours of their
plumage, combined and intermingled in marvellously minute patterns,
are all of those subdued or dead tints agreeable to the taste of
Japanese artists, and perhaps to no other. They signally contrast the
vivid and splendid colouring of objects created or developed by human
genius and patience, from the exquisite decorations and jewel-like
masses of domestic and public architecture to the magnificent flowers
and fruit produced, by the labour of countless generations, from
originals so dissimilar that only the records of past ages can trace
or the searching comparisons of science recognise them. I am told that
the present race of flower-birds themselves are a sort of indirect
creation of art. They certainly vary in size, shape, and colour
according to the flower each exclusively frequents; and those which
haunt the cultivated bells of the
leveloo
present an amazing
contrast to the far tinier and far less beautiful
caree
which have
not yet abandoned the wildflowers for those of the garden. Above two
hundred varieties distinguished by ornithologists frequent only the
domesticated flowers.

The flight of this swarm of various beauty recalled the conversation
of last night; and breaking off unobserved a long fine tendril of the
leveloo, I said lightly—

"Flower-birds are not so well-trained as
esvee
, bambina."

Never forgetting a word of mine, and never failing to catch with quick
intelligence the sense of the most epigrammatic or delicate metaphor,
Eveena started and looked up, as if stung by a serious reproach.
Fancying that overpowering fatigue had so shaken her nerves, I would
not allow her to speak. But I did not understand how much she had been
distressed, till in her own chamber, cloak and veil thrown aside, she
stood beside my seat, her sleeveless arms folded behind her, drooping
like a lily beaten down by a thunderstorm. Then she murmured sadly—

"I did not think of offending. But you are quite right; disobedience
should never pass."

"Certainly not," I replied, with a smile she did not see. Taking both
the little hands in my left, I laid the tendril on her soft white
shoulders, but so gently that in her real distress she did not feel
the touch. "You see I can keep my word; but never let me tire you
again. My flower-bird cannot take wing if she anger me in earnest."

"Are you not angered now?" she asked, glancing up in utter surprise.

My eyes, or the sight of the leveloo, answered her; and a sweet bright
smile broke through her look of frightened, penitent submission, as
she snatched the tendril and snapped it in my hand.

"Cruel!" she said, with a pretty assumption of ill-usage, "to visit a
first fault with the whip."

"You are hard to please, bambina! I knew no better. Seriously, until I
can measure your strength more truly, never again let me feel that in
inviting your company I have turned my pleasure into your pain."