low ebb. One of the most notable of this class is the world next beyond
Dore-lyn.

This sphere is one thousand times as large as ours, and the beastly
creatures that inhabit it are four times our size.

The toilers in the deep valleys of Mars are favorably intelligent
compared with these specimens of humanity. For convenience, I will call
this world Scum. Its people are so constituted that their two arms can
be used as legs; so it is quite common to see these Scumites travel over
their planet like the more graceful of our quadrupeds. Their walking,
however, is principally after our fashion, and they can change about at
pleasure. Either way of travel seems as natural as the other. When they
walk on two limbs, the body is erect, presenting a stature of such
gigantic proportions as to over-awe a representative of our world.

According to the universal standards of symmetry, these giants have an
animal beauty that is anything but handsome, and they also lack those
facial expressions of higher intelligence that come only through
generations of cultured thinking. Their health is quite perfect and they
live to a great age.

These Scumites have a language singularly their own. It is so totally
different from any of our conceptions of speech that I can scarcely find
words to describe it.

The medium of conversation is the Notched Rod. It is about twelve feet
long with various kinds of notches cut along the two sides. Such a stick
is possessed by every Scumite who expects to hold extended or
descriptive conversations. It is usually held by a skin strung around