by them. I now noticed that the women were wonderfully
beautiful--beauty that was possible only where sickness had been unknown
for hundreds of years.

Leaving this happy gathering, we passed over what appeared to be a river
about a mile broad, whose banks rose perpendicularly a hundred feet or
more from the water. These were illuminated with lights, placed every
hundred yards or so, giving it the appearance of a broad city street
stretching as far as the eye could see. At once it occurred to me that
this was one of the wonderful canals, visible even from Earth, and as we
passed over it I observed another canal, equal in proportions, running
parallel. Although both were on level ground, their waters were flowing
rapidly in different directions. What new wonder was this!

Into this second canal our aerenoid now turned, sinking slowly until
within thirty feet from the surface. Gradually our speed increased until
the lights along the banks formed one long unbroken line. One hundred
miles a minute we sped along, and yet without the least vibration or
sound. At such a speed it was possible to encircle Mars in seventy
minutes, almost, I thought, as rapidly as could Puck in "Midsummer
Night's Dream," who boasted of putting a girdle round the Earth in forty
minutes.

On we flew down the walled-in track, passing numerous other canals
equally as broad, flowing into it, until within ten minutes a faint gray
light appeared. It was daylight, and in a few moments sunlight crowned
the banks on either side of us. Even as I looked the sun itself
appeared, and in the space of fifty seconds it was high in the heavens.
In fifteen minutes we had covered almost a quarter of the globe, and now
it was the middle of the afternoon.