ever read St. Augustine's reply to the question, 'What is time'--'I know
if you don't ask me'?"

"If they haven't any years," said Jack, "how do they know when they are
old enough to die?"

"They have the years, but no measure for them," replied Edmund, and then
added quizzically, "Perhaps they _don't_ die."

"Well, I shouldn't wonder," Jack returned, "for this seems to me to be
Paradise for sure."

When we felt sleepy, we imitated the natives themselves, and, just as we
had done during the voyage from the earth, created an artificial night by
shutting ourselves up in the cabins that had been assigned to us. Rest
was taken by all of them in this manner as regularly as it is taken at
night on the earth.

One subject which we frequently discussed during the voyage was the
astonishing resemblance of our hosts to the _genus homo_. Influenced by
speculations which I had read at home about the probable unlikeness to
one another of the inhabitants of different planets, I was particularly
insistent upon this point, and declared that the facts as we found them
were utterly inexplicable.

"Not at all," Edmund averred. "It is perfectly natural, and quite as I
expected. Venus resembles the earth in composition, in form, in physical
constitution, and in subordination to the sun, the great ruler of the
entire system. Here are the same chemical elements, and the same laws of
matter. The human type is manifestly the highest possible that could be