Chapter 2

The principal musical instrument--Description--Four sets of chords--Strings of electricity--Marvellous variation and depression of the notes--Echoes and responses--Diapason changed to an extraordinary extent--Different characters of sound produced--Examples--Harp language; how taught--Accompaniments--Harp beautiful as a work of sculptural art--Movement of birds, flowers, and foliage, and exhalation of perfume in accord with the music--How idea was suggested

XLI.--SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

Amusements enjoined--Learned men prone to seclusion--Wisdom of requiring studious men to cultivate social relations questioned--Twenty men selected for the experiment--Result--The works of the "Seclusionists" and of the "Society-Sympathisers"--The MONOMANIAC--His eccentricities and cure--Convert to the Narrator's views

XLII.--THEATRES--ENTERTAINMENTS.

Arenas--Electricity--Why arenas open to the sky--Games exhibited-- Beautiful effects produced--MAN and HORSE--The FLYING CHILDREN--WILL--DEAF AND DUMB CHILD--The MONKEYS--Tragic Drama--Races and public games--Parties for children--Labouring people--The aged--Districts--The middle-aged--INTRODUCTION of strangers--Ceremony observed--ATTRACTING-MACHINE

XLIII--SHIPS.

Peculiar form and construction--Former shape--Effective model sought--"Swan Ships"--Dangers of navigation--Ship sometimes submerged--Sufferings of the passengers for want of air--Remedy--The swan's head--Captain's quarters--Vessels propelled by electric power--Machinery--Steering and stoppage of the vessel--TIMBER FOR SHIPS--How seasoned--How protected against insects in every part--The COMPASS--The ANCHOR--Peculiarity of its formation: how let out and hauled in--The Bison ropes

XLIV.--PICTURES FROM WATER.

Interesting discoveries--Microscopic pictures transmitted from a distance--Picture made of a landscape and persons afar off--Picture of swan-vessels and passengers--How effected--Bottom of the sea rendered visible

XLV.--THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.

Invaluable--Antipathy to human beings--Hippopotamus' hide--Impervious to water--Resistance to destroying forces--All parts of the animal utilised--Parts subservient to the beautiful--Hippopotamus' land--Numerous herds--Their keepers--How attired--The herb antipathetic to hippopotami--How discovered--Experiment with the young beast--Antipathetic solution keeps animals away from cities--They love fresh-water rivers--The Aoe waters prejudicial to man--Mode of rearing Hippopotami--Precautions adopted--Why they have not been able to rear animal in Western Europe--Recommendations--Habits of the animal--The hippopotami--dance--How the young one is separated from the mother--How a hippopotamus is removed from the herd--The food of the hippopotamus in general

XLVI.--WILD ANIMALS.

The Serpent--The Boa--Professors to examine medicinal and other properties--Modes of capturing wild beasts--Huntsmen--The iron-work net--The watch-hut--The bait--Dead animals not allowed in the city--Habits of the tiger--THE TIGER AND THE CHILD--THE UNICORN

XLVII.--THE SUN.

The palace--Communication with auxiliary tower--Observatory--STAR INSTRUMENT constructed--Secrets revealed--Inhabitants and atmospheres of the stars differ--Invisible beings--The SUN-OCEAN, Mountains, and Continents--Winds--Attracted by the heat--Brilliancy increased by reflection--Every planet has electricity sympathetic or antipathetic--Different appearance in Montalluyah--Fixed stars--Comets--Overflowings of the waters--Waters in space--Conclusion

INTRODUCTION.

By introducing the reader to "Another World," the Editor does not lead him into a region to which the Earth has no affinity. The Planet to which the following fragments refer not only belongs to the same solar system as our own, but also presents like physical aspects. In it, as here, are to be found land and water--mountains, rivers, seas, lakes, hills, valleys, ravines, cataracts alternating with each other; though in consequence of more potent electrical agencies the contrasts between these various objects are frequently abrupt and decided to a degree to which we can here offer no comparison. The other world about to be described is, in fact, essentially another Earth--widely differing, indeed, from ours in its details, but still subjected to the same natural laws. Its inhabitants, like devout persons here, look forward with reverent feeling towards the abode of the blest. To a purely spiritual or angelic region these fragments do not relate.

The name of "Montalluyah," which more immediately belongs to the chief city in the planet, is not incorrectly extended so as to include the entire sphere. This new world is not made up of separate countries and mutually independent states like those of the Earth, but, forming one kingdom, is governed by one supreme Ruler, assisted by twelve kings inferior to him in rank and power.

The speaker in the fragments (which may almost be said to take the form of an autobiography) was the son of one of the twelve kings, who by his genius and worth became "Tootmanyoso," or supreme Ruler. In the planet his name is mentioned with even more reverence than, by different peoples, is paid to that of Zoroaster, Solon, Lycurgus, or Alfred; but he has this peculiarity that he does not fade, like many other great legislators, into mythical indistinctness, but is himself the exponent of his own polity.

It must not, however, be supposed that this great legislator was the first to rescue his world from mere barbarism. The founder of civilization in Montalluyah seems to have been a very ancient sage named Elikoia, to whom brief reference is made in the following pages. Prior to the reign of our Tootmanyoso the people had passed through various stages of civilization, under the guidance of many wise and good men. Still the polity was defective, for the country remained subject to crime, misery, and disease.

The proverb that "Prevention is better than cure," to which everybody gives unhesitating assent, but which is often forgotten in practice, lies at the root of most of the reforms, both moral and physical, effected by the Tootmanyoso. The policy of prevention--that is, of destroying maladies of mind and body in the germ, before they had been allowed to spread their poison--was one of his leading principles. Under his influence, the physicians of Montalluyah made it less their duty to cure than to prevent disease, therein differing widely from our practitioners, who are not usually called to exercise their skill until a malady has been developed, and has perhaps assumed large proportions.

Under his influence likewise it was thought better to diminish moral evil by extirpating faults in the child, rather than by punishing crimes in the man.

Another prominent feature in the polity of the great Legislator of Montalluyah is the occupation of every person in the intellectual or physical pursuit for which he has been fitted by natural qualifications, developed and fortified by culture. Nobility, position, and wealth are made to depend on merit alone, ascertained by a mechanism which neither favouritism, ignorance, nor accident can affect. These laws may for an instant seem to partake of a democratic tinge; but it will be clearly perceived that the regulations concerning the institutions of property and marriage are diametrically opposite to those which have rendered the theories of Communists so generally hateful.

Many of the Tootmanyoso's reforms resulted from an application of extraordinary scientific discoveries to the purposes of life. Under the law which determined that the "right man" should, in the most extensive sense of the phrase, always be in the "right place," discoveries were made of which the most acute investigators of earlier times had had no conception, and the newly-acquired ability of wielding electrical, mechanical, and other forces had momentous political consequences. Armed with powers previously unknown, the Tootmanyoso found comparatively easy the successive steps towards the happiness and well-being of his world, where a series of insuperable obstacles would have been presented to the wisest of his predecessors.

Of the physical agencies mentioned in the following pages, that of electricity will be found especially prominent. Both the knowledge and the manipulation of electricity have assumed in Montalluyah proportions far beyond those known to us. The electric fluid is there employed for the most various purposes: for locomotion, for lightening heavy bodies, for increasing the power of optical instruments, for the detection and eradication of the germs of disease, for increasing the efficiency of musical instruments--in a word, for the advancement of the world in all that belongs to morality, science, and art.

To some readers the plural form, "Electricities," which frequently appears in the following pages, might seem a strange innovation. The Editor therefore states, by way of anticipation, that in certain important points the electrical science of Montalluyah differs from, if it is not opposed to, some of the principles accepted here. In Montalluyah it is an ascertained fact that everything organic or inorganic possesses an electricity of its own, each kind differing from the others in one or more important properties. Glimmerings of the progress effected in electricity and other sciences, including the knowledge and application of Sun-power, may be deduced from the facts contained in the fragments. Still, those glimmerings are but as scattered rays of light in the horizon, which, in the belief of the Editor, are mere precursors of other revelations at least equally interesting. It may be said generally that by the fragments here given, showing how the Narrator, uniting in his own person all the highest qualities of a Legislator and a Ruler, occupied himself with the discovery and application of means for the reduction of evils to their smallest possible proportions, not only giving new laws of wondrous grandeur and beauty, but eventually rendering compliance with them easy and even delightful--that by these fragments a truly stupendous polity is but partially revealed.

The Editor has reason to believe, though it cannot be stated with confidence, that Montalluyah is the world known to us as the planet Mars. Even in the following pages indications will be found of physical features harmonizing with observations made here on that planet. On the other hand, there is the seeming objection, that whereas Mars is more distant than the Earth from the Sun, the Sun appears much smaller, and its heat and light are less intense, on the Earth than in Montalluyah. These facts would, in the first instance, seem to indicate, not a longer, but a shorter distance of Montalluyah from the central luminary, and to point rather to Venus or Mercury than to Mars. But, according to the scientific theories of Montalluyah, the amount of light and heat received from the Sun, and the aspect of that luminary, are governed, not so much by proximity, as by the nature and electricity of the recipient planet and its surrounding atmosphere. In illustration of this point the fact is stated in one of the fragments, that in Montalluyah the power of the telescope is regulated, not by the distance, but by the attractive or repulsive electricity of the planet under observation, and that more power is often required to view a nearer planet than one which is far more distant.

The question as to which of the laws and customs of Montalluyah can be beneficially imitated, wholly or partially, on our Earth, and which of them merely pertain to physical accidents or to a peculiar state of society, will afford matter for reflection. It must not be supposed that, by relating the facts revealed to him, the Editor would recommend all the laws which they suggest as capable of imitation here. Although they are based on the principle of securing happiness to the community, more especially to its worthiest members, he would no more think of recommending them for adoption in their entirety than of upholding the "Swan-Ship" of Montalluyah as a model for the steamers that cross the Atlantic. Nevertheless, he trusts that his record of the "regulations" of "Another World," even where they do not admit of imitation, may serve to call attention to the evils which they were intended to remedy in Montalluyah, and which certainly nourish in all their bad luxuriance here.

ANOTHER WORLD.

I.

MONTALLUYAH.

"You forsake this earthly form which goes to dust, but you still live on for ever and ever....

"This life is but the shadow of what your future lives will be."

The Heavens are studded with stars, works of an Almighty Creator; their pale rays give but a feeble indication of the glorious brightness of worlds, many peopled by beings of a beauty, goodness, and power excelling all that human understanding can conceive.

By the grace of Him whose might embraces the universe, I will speak of a star where the inhabitants are formed like the people of the Earth, and as the dawn of day gradually discloses earth's marvellous beauties, so shall my revelations throw light on the customs of that star-world for whose well-being I worked with devoted love.

Some of my world's ways will appear strange to you. Remember that they belong to another planet, another country, another people, so that like wise travellers in a distant land, you should for a time lull your own world's prejudice, and accompany me in thought to Montalluyah, for such is the name of the city where I lived.

I was the son of one of the twelve kings called Tshialosoli, rulers of the country.

These Tshialosoli are less powerful than kings in your world, there being a ruler with full power over them and the whole State, who is called in our language "Tootmanyoso," or "The Father of the World."

All my youthful zeal and strength were applied to study and deep reflection. The most able men were appointed to superintend my education. I outstripped my masters.

The extent of my knowledge, judgment, and foresight filled with wonder the most learned and powerful in the land. Their approving praise did but encourage me onwards in the search for knowledge.

People related everywhere how wondrous were the gifts of the heaven favoured student.

Early inspired by the desire to benefit my fellow-creatures, I often asked myself why, in a world teeming with blessings, so much suffering existed? and why endless riches in the seas, in the air, in the earth, remained unworked as though they did not exist for the use of man?

At that time the state of civilization and knowledge in Montalluyah was in many respects not unlike that of the most civilized countries of your world. The religion of fire had long been replaced by the worship of the living God, and morality and goodness were respected by most, preached by many, and practised by a few.

Wars were waged with relentless cruelty by brother against brother, bad passions ruled, the rich oppressed the poor, and became in turn the victims of their own excesses, and vice, disease, and misery were rampant throughout the land.

We had money of various metals and precious stones. The greed to possess money was the cause of great crimes and loss of power. I asked myself whether men could not be brought to seek knowledge and goodness as ardently as they sought money?

I could not then answer the question, but saw that, could this be done, the boundaries of intelligence being everywhere extended, the discovery of never-ending fructifying resources would follow, with the means also of multiplying those already known.

Notwithstanding wars and pestilence, the numbers of our people had largely increased, whilst our stocks had seriously diminished, and scarcity and dearth afflicted my world.

The increasing numbers of the population would, I saw, become a means of plenty, by supplying additional numbers and power to the phalanx of nature's workmen, each, with redoubled skill fitly applied, joyfully labouring in his sphere to create abundance and secure the general well-being.

I applied myself with unwavering perseverance to the study of humanity and the arts of government, and soon found that like aspirations had ruled many wise and good men in the different ages of my planet. I applied myself to the knowledge of their great wisdom and many precepts, and sought to discover why, notwithstanding the truthfulness and beauty of the golden lessons of these sages, and the eloquence and persuasion of their words, corruption and ruin still so largely prevailed.

Not content with meditating on what had been done and written, I attended the schools, observed the children's ways, and the mode of educating and rearing the husbandmen of Nature's vineyard. I visited the hospitals for the sick, and the theatres of anatomy. I examined into the causes of disease, and the effects of the existing remedies. I visited the prisons, and studied the results of punishment and the causes of crime. I visited the poor in their hovels, the rich in their palaces; I observed mankind in various phases, and as it were dissected men's minds and passions. I saw everywhere never-ending power in man and nature recklessly wasted or turned against the community.

My labours were rewarded by frequent advancement. Honours did but stimulate me to further exertions; the greater I became the more I applied myself, ever thirsting for knowledge and the power of doing good, till at length, after passing the severest tests, I became Tootmanyoso (Father of the World), and head of the State.

Then indeed my real labours began. Light from Heaven had enabled me to see the causes of the evils afflicting my planet. I had now to apply remedies for changing the poisoned torrents into sources of fertility, refreshment, and delight.

The dangers and obstructions before me were immense. I felt that no unaided mortal power could overcome them; but I was encouraged to believe that, "like a chariot at full speed, which turns a narrow and dangerous corner, so would I pass over my mountains of difficulty, and run free in the wide space beyond."

I resolved with all the concentrated ardour of my soul to persevere.

Day by day I applied myself to the work, and invoked the aid of my Creator.

My harp was my constant companion. I was a great harpist; and when gratitude for some new light choked my utterance, I made the harp speak in accents and in language[1] that gave fresh inspiration to my soul.

[Footnote 1: Musical sounds in Montalluyah have a meaning as easily understood as spoken words. Our harp is different to yours, and will be described hereafter.]

II.

VYORA.

"The humble and the proud are equally subject to the decrees of Heaven; and often one is raised and the other brought low."

The system of education which I early inaugurated soon gave to my hand men of wondrous intelligence, fervid and eloquent emissaries, having at heart the success of my doctrines.

These men, themselves convinced, and earnest to convince others, I sent in all directions to prepare the people, and to discover genius and intelligence under whatever garb concealed, for I had determined that all should be encouraged to use their powers for their own and the general good, and be advanced accordingly.

Many things had happened to strengthen this, my early resolve. One incident I will now relate.

A beggar made many attempts to gain admission to my palace, but was turned away with blows; his prayers that he might speak with me were received with derision,--he was looked upon as a madman, and not allowed to pass the outer gate.

This same beggar--Vyora, by name,--saved the life of a little boy, the child of one of my leading men called Usheemee, "Men of truth."

The child would have been crushed to death under the wheels of a chariot, moved by electricity and drawn by fleet horses,[1] had not this same beggar rushed forward, regardless of peril, and saved the boy.

[Footnote 1: The beauty of our horses, the desire that the chariots should not be cumbersome, and the steep hills everywhere in Montalluyah, are the reasons why electricity is not used alone. When the horses stop, the electric action is suspended, and the momentum is neutralized simultaneously by a governor or regulator.]

The man refused money, and for his sole reward requested that he might be brought into my presence. The father told me of this, which seemed to him the more strange inasmuch as the petitioner refused to say what he required of me.

When brought before me, I asked Vyora what he sought? He replied that his whole desire, his soul's longing, was to be appointed a teacher, that he might instruct youth, and see little children grow wiser around him.

I regarded the man attentively, and put many searching questions. He answered all in a remarkable way, and gave proofs of intellect, knowledge, and perception beyond the masters who had passed through the required ordeals, and was so gentle and modest withal, that it was delightful to speak with him.

The father of Vyora had possessed wealth, but from the cruelty and oppression of an enemy mightier than he, had lost both fortune and life, and at his death left a family dependent on charity.

The widow, a woman of remarkable gifts and keen sensibilities, prostrated by grief, died soon after, carried off suddenly by a disease called, "Karni ferola," "Absorption of the vitality," [1] which at that time baffled the skill of the physicians, who indeed had seldom suspected its presence till the disease was beyond cure.

[Footnote 1: Answering to "consumption;" this disease is now detected and cured in its germ.]

Vyora, himself an emaciated boy, unfitted for physical labour, was the eldest of many brothers and sisters, who looked up to him in their hunger. He was driven to beg their food.

After the poor man had passed easily all the ordeals, I appointed him "a Character-Diver," to discover the qualities and detect the faults of little children,[2] and raised him from indigence to affluence.

[Footnote 2: See p. 19.]

The ability, industry, and wisdom of the man, and the good he did were beyond all praise, and I soon appointed him head of all the Character-Divers in Montalluyah.

This incident, with many others, engaged my most serious reflection. But for an accident, the powers of a truly superior mind would have been lost to humanity! Vyora was but the type of numbers, evidencing how capriciously wealth and honours were then distributed.

III.

PERSEVERANCE.

"Go onward! lose not faith. Let the goodness of God support you, and the beauty and fruitfulness of the work cheer you; and when you are blest with success forget not the source whence all blessings come."

Several years passed before my plans were matured. I reduced all to writing. On one side of the page I noted my resolutions, with the means of carrying them out; on the other side, every objection that could be raised: on a third page I wrote down the answers. Every objection was invited, every difficulty anticipated, and every detail thoroughly weighed; nothing was thought too great or too insignificant.

I submitted the whole to my wisest councillors, and encouraged them to speak their inmost thoughts. They were lost in admiration, but entreated me to abandon my design. My life, they said, would be the penalty were I to attempt to carry out any part of my projects.