edge of one of Mars' long-dead seas, in the bottom

the yellow,moss-like vegetation which blankets practically the entire surface of Mars

(My Addition) - This was a last ditch effort by a group of dying genotech engineers. The moss grows literally anywhere and gives off Oxy as it grows. Not photosynthisis, but rather a sub-atomic conversion of any of a class of minerals. a trackless waste of moss which, bending to

the pressure of broad tire or padded foot, rose up again

behind us, leaving no sign that we had passed

Springing to my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for the effort, which on Earth would have brought me standing upright, carried me into the Martian air to the height of about three yards.ut four feet in height. My attempts to walk resulted in a variety of hops which took me clear of the ground a couple of feet at each step and landed me sprawling upon my face or back at the end of each second or third hop.

In a few moments had reached the low, encircling wall of the enclosure. There appeared to be no doors or windows upon the side nearest me, but as the wall was but about four feet high The roof of the enclosure was of solid glass about four or five inches in thickness, and beneath this were several hundred large eggs, perfectly round and snowy white. The eggs were nearly uniform in size being about two and one-half feet in diameter.

They had 6 limbs, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head.

The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.

With the exception of their ornaments all were naked.

There was no hair on their bodies. In the adults, the color of the skin is an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female as I was to learn quite soon,.

The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making

these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance. was fully

fifteen feet in height and, on Earth, would have weighed some

four hundred pounds. The average life expectancy of a Martian after the age of

maturity is about three hundred years, but would be nearer

the one-thousand mark were it not for the various means

leading to violent death.

a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming metal,

It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either

side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and

which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping

mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive

neck.

Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a

dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly

was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders

and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were

heavily padded and nailless, which fact had also contributed

to the noiselessness of their approach, and, in common

with a multiplicity of legs, is a characteristic feature of the

fauna of Mars.

He sat his mount as we sit a horse,

grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, while the

hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the

side of his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally

to help preserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither

bridle or reins of any description for guidance.

a

small domestic bull thoat, such as is used for saddle

purposes by all red Martians. The animal is about the size

of a horse and quite gentle, but in color and shape an exact

replica of his huge and fierce cousin of the wilds.

The weapon which caused me to decide against an attempt at

escape by flight was what was evidently a rifle of some

description, and which I felt, for some reason, they were

peculiarly efficient in handling.

These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which

I learned later was a very light and intensely hard growth

much prized on Mars, and entirely unknown to us denizens

of Earth. The metal of the barrel is an alloy composed

principally of aluminum and steel which they have learned

to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the steel with

which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is comparatively

little, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium projectiles

which they use, and the great length of the barrel, they are

deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be unthinkable

on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle is

three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual

service when equipped with their wireless finders and

sighters is but a trifle over two hundred miles.

short-sword, my dagger, my hatchet, firearms or a spear while he held only his long-sword

anevil looking pistol from its holster

awful radium powder, and make their

terrible projectiles. You know that these have to be

manufactured by artificial light, as exposure to sunlight always

results in an explosion. You have noticed that their bullets

explode when they strike an object? Well, the opaque, outer

coating is broken by the impact, exposing a glass cylinder,

almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute particle

of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even though

diffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which

nothing can withstand. If you ever witness a night battle

you will note the absence of these explosions, while the

morning following the battle will be filled at sunrise with the

sharp detonations of exploding missiles fired the preceding

night. As a rule, however, non-exploding projectiles are used

at night.

The bullet striking the wooden casing of the window exploded, blowing a hole completely through the wood and masonry.

the buildings were deserted, and while not greatly decayed had

the appearance of not having been tenanted for years, possibly

for ages. Toward the center of the city was a large plaza, and

upon this and in the buildings immediately surrounding it

were camped some nine or ten hundred creatures of the same

breed as my captors It had been built upon a beautiful, natural harbor,

landlocked by magnificent hills. The little valley on the west

front of the city, she explained, was all that remained of the

harbor, while the pass through the hills to the old sea bottom

had been the channel through which the shipping passed up

to the city's gates.

The building was low, but covered an enormous area. It

was constructed of gleaming white marble inlaid with gold

and brilliant stones which sparkled and scintillated in the

sunlight. The main entrance was some hundred feet in width

and projected from the building proper to form a huge canopy

above the entrance hall. There was no stairway, but a gentle

incline to the first floor of the building opened into an

enormous chamber encircled by galleries.

On the floor of this chamber, which was dotted with highly

carved wooden desks and chairs, were assembled about forty

or fifty male Martians around the steps of a rostrum. On the

platform proper squatted an enormous warrior heavily loaded

with metal ornaments, gay-colored feathers and beautifully

wrought leather trappings ingeniously set with precious stones.

From his shoulders depended a short cape of white fur lined

with brilliant scarlet silk.

It waddled in on its ten short legs, and

squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The

thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore

a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws

were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks. wicked-looking eyes, uttering strange sounds and baring his ugly and

ferocious tusks. this is the fleetest animal

on Mars, and owing to its intelligence, loyalty, and ferocity is

used in hunting, in war, and as the protector of the Martian man.

The food consisted of about a pound of some solid substance of

the consistency of cheese and almost tasteless, while the liquid

was apparently milk from some animal. It was not unpleasant

to the taste, though slightly acid, and I learned in a short time

to prize it very highly. It came, as I later discovered, not from

an animal, as there is only one mammal on Mars and that one

very rare indeed, but from a large plant which grows practically

without water, but seems to distill its plentiful supply of

milk from the products of the soil, the moisture of the air,

and the rays of the sun. A single plant of this species will give

eight or ten quarts of milk per day.

the Martian nights are extremely cold,

and as there is practically no twilight or dawn, the changes

in temperature are sudden and most uncomfortable, as are the

transitions from brilliant daylight to darkness. The nights are

either brilliantly illumined or very dark, for if neither of the

two moons of Mars happen to be in the sky almost total

darkness results, since the lack of atmosphere, or, rather, the

very thin atmosphere, fails to diffuse the starlight to any

great extent; on the other hand, if both of the moons are in

the heavens at night the surface of the ground is brightly

illuminated.

Both of Mars' moons are vastly nearer her than is our

moon to Earth; the nearer moon being but about five thousand

miles distant, while the further is but little more than

fourteen thousand miles away, against the nearly one-quarter

million miles which separate us from our moon. The nearer

moon of Mars makes a complete revolution around the planet

in a little over seven and one-half hours, so that she may be

seen hurtling through the sky like some huge meteor two or

three times each night, revealing all her phases during each

transit of the heavens.

The further moon revolves about Mars in something over

thirty and one-quarter hours, and with her sister satellite

makes a nocturnal Martian scene one of splendid and weird

grandeur.

depends principally upon torches, a kind of candle, and a peculiar oil

lamp which generates a gas and burns without a wick. This last device produces an intensely brilliant far-reaching white light, but as the natural oil which it requires can only be obtained by mining in one of several widely separated and remote localities it is seldom used by these creatures whose

only thought is for today, and whose hatred for manual laborhas kept them in a semi-barbaric state for countless ages.

a colossal ape-likecreature, white and hairless except for an enormous shock of

bristly hair upon its head.The thing, which more nearly resembled our earthly men

than it did the Martians I had seen, held me pinioned to the ground with one huge foot, The creatures were about ten or fifteen feet tall, standing erect, and had, like the green Martians, an intermediary set

of arms or legs, midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes were close together and non-protruding; their ears were high set, but more laterally located than those of the

Martians, while their snouts and teeth were strikingly like those of our African gorilla. Altogether they were not unlovely when viewed in comparison with the green Martians. They stand fifteen feet in height and walk erect upon their

hind feet.

The work of rearing young, green Martians consists solely

in teaching them to talk, and to use the weapons of warfare

with which they are loaded down from the very first year of

their lives. Coming from eggs in which they have lain for

five years, the period of incubation, they step forth into the

world perfectly developed except in size. Entirely unknown

to their mothers, who, in turn, would have difficulty in

pointing out the fathers with any degree of accuracy, they are

the common children of the community, and their education

devolves upon the females who chance to capture them as

they leave the incubator.

Their foster mothers may not even have had an egg in the

incubator, as was the case with Sola, who had not commenced

to lay, until less than a year before she became the mother of

another woman's offspring. But this counts for little among

the green Martians, as parental and filial love is as unknown to

them as it is common among us. I believe this horrible system

which has been carried on for ages is the direct cause of the

loss of all the finer feelings and higher humanitarian instincts

among these poor creatures. From birth they know no father

or mother love, they know not the meaning of the word home;

they are taught that they are only suffered to live until they

can demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that they are

fit to live. Should they prove deformed or defective in any way

they are promptly shot; nor do they see a tear shed for a

single one of the many cruel hardships they pass through from

earliest infancy.

I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or

intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and

pitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural

resources of which have dwindled to a point where the support

of each additional life means an added tax upon the community

into which it is thrown.

By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens

of each species, and with almost supernatural foresight

they regulate the birth rate to merely offset the loss by death.

Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggs

each year, and those which meet the size, weight, and specific

gravity tests are hidden in the recesses of some subterranean

vault where the temperature is too low for incubation. Every

year these eggs are carefully examined by a council of twenty

chieftains, and all but about one hundred of the most perfect

are destroyed out of each yearly supply. At the end of five

years about five hundred almost perfect eggs have been chosen

from the thousands brought forth. These are then placed in

the almost air-tight incubators to be hatched by the sun's rays

after a period of another five years. The hatching which we

had witnessed today was a fairly representative event of its

kind, all but about one per cent of the eggs hatching in two

days. If the remaining eggs ever hatched we knew nothing of

the fate of the little Martians. They were not wanted, as their

offspring might inherit and transmit the tendency to prolonged

incubation, and thus upset the system which has maintained

for ages and which permits the adult Martians to figure the

proper time for return to the incubators, almost to an hour.

The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there

is little or no likelihood of their being discovered by other

tribes. The result of such a catastrophe would mean no children

in the community for another five years.

A huge craft, long, low, and gray-painted, swung slowly over the

crest of the nearest hill. carried a strange banner swung from stem to stern

above the upper works, and upon the prow of each was

painted some odd device that gleamed in the sunlight and

showed plainly even at the distance at which we were from

the vessels. I could see figures crowding the forward decks

and upper works of the air craft.

They

were small fliers for the most part, built for two to three men.

a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women

of my past life. Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every

feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and

lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black,

waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure.

Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which

the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully

molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

he was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who

accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments

she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced

the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure.

his short-sword

ancient beds of highly wrought

metal swinging from enormous gold chains depending from the

marble ceilings.

All Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad

south to the ice-clad north, though their written languages

differ. Only in the valley Dor, where the river Iss empties

into the lost sea of Korus, is there supposed to

be a different language spoken

the instruments her people had used and been

perfecting for ages, which permit them to throw upon

a screen a perfect image of what is transpiring upon any

planet and upon many of the stars. These pictures are so

perfect in detail that, when photographed and enlarged,

objects no greater than a blade of grass may be distinctly

recognized

mounted the chariot

ornate and brightly colored chariots

zitidars, like mastodons used as heavy draught animals

My wounds gave

me but little pain, so wonderfully and rapidly had the

applications and injections of the female exercised their

therapeutic powers, and so deftly had she bound and plastered

the injuries.

one of the small one-man

fliers The body of the one-man air craft is about sixteen feet

long, two feet wide and three inches thick, tapering to a

point at each end. The driver sits on top of this plane upon

a seat constructed over the small, noiseless radium engine

which propels it. I had traversed perhaps two hundred miles in a little less

than an hour (My Addition: They travel 250 MPH.)

I can tell that by the conformation of your brain and the strange location of your internal organs and the shape and size of your heart.""Can you see through me?" I exclaimed."Yes, I can see all but your thoughts

He wore but a single article of clothing or adornment, a

small collar of gold from which depended upon his chest a

great ornament as large as a dinner plate set solid with huge

diamonds, except for the exact center which was occupied

by a strange stone, an inch in diameter, that scintillated nine

different and distinct rays; the seven colors of our earthly

prism and two beautiful rays which, to me, were new and

nameless. I cannot describe them any more than you could

describe red to a blind man. I only know that they were

beautiful in the extreme.

the machinery

which produces that artificial atmosphere which sustains

life on Mars. The secret of the entire process hinges on

the use of the ninth ray, one of the beautiful scintillations

which I had noted emanating from the great stone in my

host's diadem.

This ray is separated from the other rays of the sun by

means of finely adjusted instruments placed upon the roof

of the huge building, three-quarters of which is used for

reservoirs in which the ninth ray is stored. This product is

then treated electrically, or rather certain proportions of

refined electric vibrations are incorporated with it, and the

result is then pumped to the five principal air centers of the

planet where, as it is released, contact with the ether of

space transforms it into atmosphere.

There is always sufficient reserve of the ninth ray stored in

the great building to maintain the present Martian atmosphere for

a thousand years, and the only fear, as my new friend told me,

was that some accident might befall the pumping apparatus.

The medium of exchange upon Mars is not dissimilar from

our own except that the coins are oval. Paper money is

issued by individuals as they require it and redeemed twice

yearly. If a man issues more than he can redeem, the

government pays his creditors in full and the debtor works out

the amount upon the farms or in mines, which are all owned

by the government. This suits everybody except the debtor as

it has been a difficult thing to obtain sufficient voluntary

labor to work the great isolated farm lands of Mars, stretching

as they do like narrow ribbons from pole to pole, through wild

stretches peopled by wild animals and wilder men.

Red Man Food

On this trip I tasted the first meat I had eaten since

leaving Earth--large, juicy steaks and chops from the well-fed

domestic animals of the farms. Also I enjoyed luscious fruits

and vegetables, but not a single article of food which was

exactly similar to anything on Earth. Every plant and flower

and vegetable and animal has been so refined by ages of careful,

scientific cultivation and breeding that the like of them on

Earth dwindled into pale, gray, characterless nothingness

by comparison.

The walls of Zodanga are seventy-five feet in height and

fifty feet thick. They are built of enormous blocks of

carborundum, We were at the entrance

to the vast, walled city. It was still very early in

the morning and the streets were practically deserted.

The residences, raised high upon their metal columns, resembled

huge rookeries, while the uprights themselves presented the

appearance of steel tree trunks. The shops as a rule were

not raised from the ground nor were their doors bolted or

barred, since thievery is practically unknown upon Barsoom.

Assassination is the ever-present fear of all Barsoomians,

and for this reason alone their homes are raised high above

the ground at night, or in times of danger.

The plaza of Zodanga covers a square mile and is bounded

by the palaces of the jeddak, the jeds, and other members

of the royalty and nobility of Zodanga, as well as by the

principal public buildings, cafes, and shop

Kantos Kan led me to one of these gorgeous eating

places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus.

No hand touched the food from the time it entered the

building in its raw state until it emerged hot and delicious

upon the tables before the guests, in response to the touching

of tiny buttons to indicate their desires.

The medium of buoyancy is contained

within the thin metal walls of the body and consists of

the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion, as it may

be termed in view of its properties.

This ray, like the ninth ray, is unknown on Earth, but

the Martians have discovered that it is an inherent property

of all light no matter from what source it emanates. They

have learned that it is the solar eighth ray which propels

the light of the sun to the various planets, and that it is

the individual eighth ray of each planet which "reflects," or

propels the light thus obtained out into space once more.

The solar eighth ray would be absorbed by the surface of

Barsoom, but the Barsoomian eighth ray, which tends to

propel light from Mars into space, is constantly streaming

out from the planet constituting a force of repulsion of

gravity which when confined is able to life enormous weights

from the surface of the ground.

In one instance, some nine hundred years before, the first

great battle ship to be built with eighth ray reservoirs was

stored with too great a quantity of the rays and she had

sailed up from Helium with five hundred officers and men,

never to return. Her power of repulsion for the planet was so great that

it had carried her far into space, where she can be seen

today, by the aid of powerful telescopes, hurtling through

the heavens ten thousand miles from Mars; a tiny satellite

that will thus encircle Barsoom to the end of time.

The tapestries were of a strange weaving which gave the

appearance of heavy solidity from one side, but from my hiding

place I could perceive all that took place within the room as

readily as though there had been no curtain intervening

The building was an enormous one, rearing its lofty head

fully a thousand feet into the air. But few buildings in

Zodanga were higher than these barracks, though several topped

it by a few hundred feet; the docks of the great battleships

of the line standing some fifteen hundred feet from the

ground, while the freight and passenger stations of the

merchant squadrons rose nearly as high.

The city of Helium

In the middle of the afternoon we sighted the scarlet and

yellow towers of Helium, and a short time later a great fleet

of Zodangan battleships rose from the camps of the besiegers

without the city, and advanced to meet us.

The banners of Helium had been strung from stem to

stern of each of our mighty craft, but the Zodangans did

not need this sign to realize that we were enemies, for our

green Martian warriors had opened fire upon them almost

as they left the ground. With their uncanny marksmanship

they raked the on-coming fleet with volley after volley.

The twin cities of Helium, perceiving that we were friends,

sent out hundreds of vessels to aid us, and then began the

first real air battle I had ever witnessed.

Gods of Mars

Odd, grotesque shapes they were; unlike anything that I had

ever seen upon Mars, and yet, at a distance, most manlike

in appearance. The larger specimens appeared to be about

ten or twelve feet in height when they stood erect, and

to be proportioned as to torso and lower extremities

precisely as is earthly man.

Their arms, however, were very short, and from where I stood

seemed as though fashioned much after the manner of an

elephant's trunk, in that they moved in sinuous and snakelike

undulations, as though entirely without bony structure, or if

there were bones it seemed that they must be vertebral in nature.

Its hairless body was a strange and ghoulish blue, except

for a broad band of white which encircled its protruding,

single eye: an eye that was all dead white--pupil, iris,

and ball.

Its nose was a ragged, inflamed, circular hole in the centre

of its blank face; a hole that resembled more closely nothing

that I could think of other than a fresh bullet wound which

has not yet commenced to bleed.

Below this repulsive orifice the face was quite blank to

the chin, for the thing had no mouth that I could discover.

The head, with the exception of the face, was covered by a tangled

mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length. Each

hair was about the bigness of a large angleworm, and as the thing

moved the muscles of its scalp this awful head-covering seemed

to writhe and wriggle and crawl about the fearsome face as though

indeed each separate hair was endowed with independent life.

every particular snake-like hair upon their

heads rose stiffly perpendicular as if each had been a sentient

organism looking or listening for the source or meaning of the

wail. And indeed the latter proved to be the truth, for this

strange growth upon the craniums of the plant men of Barsoom

represents the thousand ears of these hideous creatures,

the last remnant of the strange race which sprang from the

original Tree of Life.

The body and the legs were as symmetrically human as Nature

could have fashioned them, and the feet, too, were human

in shape, but of monstrous proportions. From heel to toe

they were fully three feet long, and very flat and very broad.

As it came quite close to me I discovered that its strange

movements, running its odd hands over the surface of the

turf, were the result of its peculiar method of feeding, which

consists in cropping off the tender vegetation with its

razorlike talons and sucking it up from its two mouths, which

lie one in the palm of each hand, through its arm-like throats.

In addition to the features which I have already described,

the beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in

length, quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to

a flat, thin blade toward the end, which trailed at right

angles to the ground.

By far the most remarkable feature of this most remarkable

creature, however, were the two tiny replicas of it, each

about six inches in length, which dangled, one on either side,

from its armpits. They were suspended by a small stem which

seemed to grow from the exact tops of their heads to where

it connected them with the body of the adult. Whether they were the young, or merely portions of a

composite creature, I did not know.

The plant man charged to within a dozen feet of the party

and then, with a bound, rose as though to pass directly above

their heads. His powerful tail was raised high to one side, and

as he passed close above them he brought it down in one terrific

sweep that crushed a green warrior's skull as though it had been

an eggshell.

razor-like

talons cut our limbs and bodies, and a green and sticky

syrup, such as oozes from a crushed caterpillar, smeared us

from head to foot, for every cut and thrust of our longswords

brought spurts of this stuff upon us from the severed arteries

of the plant men, through which it courses in its sluggish

viscidity in lieu of blood.

is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low

hills surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. Like nearly

all Martian animals it is almost hairless, having only a great

bristly mane about its thick neck.

Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its

enormous jaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or

Martian hound, with several rows of long needle-like fangs;

its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears, while

its enormous, protruding eyes of green add the last touch of

terror to its awful aspect.

As it crept toward me it lashed its powerful tail against

its yellow sides, and when it saw that it was discovered it

emitted the terrifying roar which often freezes its prey into

momentary paralysis in the instant that it makes its spring.

Are white skinned and in all ways like to a normal man in appearance

are mortal," she replied. "They die from the

same causes as you or I might: those who do not live their

allotted span of life, one thousand years, when by the authority

of custom they may take their way in happiness through the

long tunnel that leads to Issus As I stooped to the dead man to do her bidding I noted

that not a hair grew upon his head, which was quite as

bald as an egg. "They are all thus from birth,

the offspring of the prisoners from the outside

world; red and green Martians and the white race of therns.

The therns," and he smiled maliciously as he spoke, "are

but the result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape

of antiquity

Constant confinement below ground had wrought odd freaks

upon their skins. They more resemble corpses than living

beings. Many are deformed, others maimed, while the

majority, Thuvia explained, are sightless.

The therns fired upon them through shields affixed to their

rifles,

They were popularly supposed to inhabit the lesser moon

They were large men, possibly six feet and

over in height. Their features were clear cut and handsome

in the extreme; their eyes were well set and large, though a

slight narrowness lent them a crafty appearance; the iris, as

well as I could determine by moonlight, was of extreme

blackness, while the eyeball itself was quite white and clear.

The physical structure of their bodies seemed identical with

those of the therns, the red men, and my own. Only in the

colour of their skin did they differ materially from us; that

is of the appearance of polished ebony, and odd as it

may seem for a Southerner to say it, adds to rather than

detracts from their marvellous beauty. My race is the oldest

on the planet. We trace our lineage, unbroken, direct to

the Tree of Life which flourished in the centre of the

Valley Dor twenty-three million years ago. The pure strain of the blood of this first black man has

remained untainted by admixture with other creatures in the

race of which I am a member;

Without exception the blacks were handsome men, and

well built. The officers were conspicuous through the

wondrous magnificence of their resplendent trappings.

Many harnesses were so encrusted with gold, platinum, silver

and precious stones as to entirely hide the leather beneath.

The cage proved to be one of the common types of elevator

cars that I had seen in other parts of Barsoom. They are

operated by means of enormous magnets which are suspended

at the top of the shaft. By an electrical device the volume of

magnetism generated is regulated and the speed of the car varied.

In long stretches they move at a sickening speed, especially on

the upward trip, since the small force of gravity inherent to Mars

results in very little opposition to the powerful force above.

cold ersite of this thrice happy bench

Ground Fliers

Are like aircraft with less of the boyant ray. They skim along the ground

impelled by a smaller propeller than on a aircraft. They may rise up to pass slower traffic, but can not fly higher than 10’ and that only for short periods weithout quickly using up the ray.

Sorak

Smooth skinned six legged cat, domesticated but sometimes found as prides in the wild.

Tanpi - Oval gold piece

Teepi - Silver piece