right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic, flowed between
scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me.

At a little distance up the river rose mighty perpendicular bluffs,
from the very base of which the great river seemed to rise.

But it was not these inspiring and magnificent evidences of Nature's
grandeur that took my immediate attention from the beauties of
the forest. It was the sight of a score of figures moving slowly
about the meadow near the bank of the mighty river.

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.

As I watched them from behind the stem of a huge tree, one of the
creatures moved slowly in my direction, engaged in the occupation
that seemed to be the principal business of each of them, and which
consisted in running their oddly shaped hands over the surface of
the sward, for what purpose I could not determine.

As he approached quite close to me I obtained an excellent view of