Across the Zodiac Read online

  CHAPTER IX - MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

  Next morning Esmo asked me to accompany him on a visit to the seaportI have mentioned. In the course of this journey I had opportunities oflearning many things respecting the social and practical conditions ofhuman life and industry on Mars that had hitherto been unknown to me,and to appreciate the enormous advance in material civilisation whichhas accompanied what seems to me, as it would probably seem to anyother Earth-dweller, a terrible moral degeneration. Most of thesethings I learned partly from my own observation, partly from theexplanations of my companion; some exclusively from what he told me.We passed a house in process of building, and here I learned themanner in which the wonders of domestic architecture, which had sosurprised me by their perfection and beauty, are accomplished. Thematerial employed in all buildings is originally liquid, or ratherviscous. In the first place, the foundation is excavated to a depth oftwo or three feet, the ground beaten hard, and the liquid concretepoured into the level tank thus formed. When this has hardenedsufficiently to admit of their erection, thin frames of metal areerected, enclosing the spaces to be occupied by the several outer andinterior walls.

  These spaces are filled with the concrete at a temperature of about80 deg. C. The tracery and the bas-reliefs impressed on the walls areobtained by means of patterns embossed or marked upon thinner sheetsplaced inside the metallic frames. The hardening is effected partly bysudden cooling, partly by the application of electricity under greathydraulic pressure. The flat roof is constructed in the same manner,the whole mass, when the fluid concrete is solidified, being simplyone continuous stone, as hard and cohesive as granite. Where a flatroof would be liable to give way or break from its own weight, thearch or dome is employed to give the required strength, andconsequently all the largest Martial buildings are constructed in theform of vaults or domes. As regards the form of the building,individual or public taste is absolutely free, it being just as easyto construct a circular or octagonal as a rectangular house orchamber; but the latter form is almost exclusively employed forprivate dwellings. The jewel-like lustre and brilliancy I havedescribed are given to the surfaces of the walls by the simultaneousaction of cold, electricity, and pressure, the principle of which Esmocould not so explain as to render it intelligible to me. Almost thewhole physical labour is done by machinery, from the digging andmixing of the materials to their conveyance and delivery into theplace prepared for them by the erection of the metallic frames, andfrom the erection to the removal of the latter. The translucentmaterial for the windows I have described is prepared by a separateprocess, and in distinct factories, and, ready hardened and cut intosheets of the required size, is brought to the building and fixed inits place by machinery. It can be tinted to the taste of thepurchaser; but, as a rule, a tintless crystal is preferred. The entirework of building a large house, from the foundation to the finishingand removal of the metallic frames, occupies from half-a-dozen toeighteen workmen from four to eight days. This, like most other labourin Mars, goes on continuously; the electric lamps, raised to a greatheight on hollow metallic poles, affording by night a very sufficientsubstitute for the light of the sun. All work is done by three relaysof artisans; the first set working from noon till evening, the nextfrom evening till morning, and the third from morning to noon. TheMartial day, which consists of about twenty-four hours forty minutesof our time, is divided in a somewhat peculiar manner. The two-hourperiods, of which "mean" sunrise and sunset are severally the middlepoints, are respectively called the morning and evening _zydau_. Twoperiods of the same length before and after noon and midnight aredistinguished as the first and second dark, the first and secondmid-day zyda. There remain four intervals of three hours each,popularly described as the sleeping, waking, after-sunrise, andfore-sunset zyda respectively. This is the popular reckoning, and thatmarked upon the instruments which record time for ordinary purposes,and by these the meals and other industrial and domestic epochs arefixed. But for purposes of exact calculation, the day, beginning anhour before mean sunrise, is distributed into twelve periods, orantoi, of a little more than two terrestrial hours each. These againare subdivided by twelve into periods of a little more than 10m.,50s., 2-1/2s., and 5/24s respectively; but of these the second andlast are alone employed in common speech. The uniform employment oftwelve as the divisor and multiplier in tables of weight, distance,time, and space, as well as in arithmetical notation, has all theconveniences of the decimal system of France, and some others besidesdue to the greater convenience of twelve as a base. But as regards thelarger divisions of time, the Martials are placed at a greatdisadvantage by the absence of any such intermediate divisions as theMoon has suggested to Terrestrials. The revolutions of the satellitesare too rapid and their periods too brief to be of service in dividingtheir year of 668-2/3 solar days. Martial civilisation having takenits rise within the tropics--indeed the equatorial continents, whichonly here and there extend far into the temperate zone, and two minorcontinents in the southern ocean, are the only well-peopled portionsof the planet--the demarcation of the seasons afforded by thesolstices have been comparatively disregarded. The year is dividedinto winter and summer, each beginning with the Equinox, anddistinguished as the North and South summer respectively. But thesebeing exceedingly different in duration--the Northern half of theplanet having a summer exceeding by seventy-six days that of theSouthern hemisphere--are of no use as accurate divisions of time. Timeis reckoned, accordingly, from the first day of the year; the 669thday being incomplete, and the new year beginning at the moment of theEquinox with the 0th day. In remote ages the lapse of time was markedby festivals and holidays occurring at fixed periods; but theprinciple of utility has long since abolished all anniversaries,except those fixed by Nature, and these pass without public observanceand almost without notice.

  The climate is comparatively equable in the Northern hemisphere, thesummer of the South being hotter and the winter colder, as the planetis much nearer the Sun during the former. On an average, the solardisc seems about half as large as to eyes on Earth; but the continentslying in a belt around the middle of the planet, nearly the whole ofits population enjoy the advantages of tropical regularity. There aretwo brief rainy seasons on the Equator and in its neighbourhood, andone at each of the tropics. Outside these the cold of winter isaggravated by cloud and mist. The barometer records from 20 inches to21 inches at the sea-level. Storms are slight, brief, and infrequent;the tides are insignificant; and sea-voyages were safe and easy evenbefore Martial ingenuity devised vessels which are almost independentof weather. During the greater part of the year a clear sky from themorning to the evening zyda may be reckoned upon with almost absoluteconfidence. A heavy dew, thoroughly watering the whole surface,rendering the rarity of rain no inconvenience to agriculture, fallsduring the earlier hours of the night, which nevertheless remainscloudy; while the periods of sunset and sunrise are, as I have alreadysaid, marked almost invariably by dense mist, extending from one tofour thousand feet above the sea-level, according to latitude andseason. From the dissipation of the morning to the fall of the eveningmist, the tropical temperature ranges, according to the time of the dayand year, from 24 deg. to 35 deg. C. A very sudden change takes place atsunset. Except within 28 deg. of the Equator, night frosts prevail duringno small part of the year. Fine nights are at all times chilly, andmen employed out of doors from the fall of the evening to thedispersal of the morning mists rely on an unusually warm under-dressof soft leather, as flexible as kid, but thicker, which is said tokeep in the warmth of the body far better than any woven material.Women who, from whatever reason, venture out at night, wear thewarmest cloaks they can procure. Those of limited means wear a looselywoven hair or woollen over-robe in lieu of their usual outdoorgarment, resembling tufted cotton. Those who can afford themsubstitute for the envelope of down, described a while back, warm skinor fur overgarments, obtained from the sub-arctic lands and seas, andfurnished sometimes by a creature not very unlike our Polar bear, butpassing half his time in the wa
ter and living on fish; sometimes by amammal more resembling something intermediate between the mammoth andthe walrus, with the habits of the hippopotamus and a fur not unlikethe sealskin so much affected in Europe.

  Outside the city, at a distance protecting it from any unpleasantvapours, which besides were carried up metallic tubes of enormousheight, were several factories of great extent, some chemical, sometextile, others reducing from their ores, purifying, forging, andproducing in bulk and forms convenient for their various uses, thenumerous metals employed in Mars. The most important ofthese--_zorinta_--is obtained from a tenacious soil much resemblingour own clay. [12] It is far lighter than tin, has the colour andlustre of silver, and never tarnishes, the only rust produced byoxidation of its surface being a white loose powder, which can bebrushed or shaken off without difficulty. Of this nearly all Martialutensils and furniture are constructed; and its susceptibility to theelectric current renders it especially useful for mechanical purposes,electricity supplying the chief if not the sole motive-power employedin Martial industry. The largest factories, however, employ but a fewhands, the machinery being so perfect as to perform, with very littleinterposition from human hands, the whole work, from the firstpurification to the final arrangement. I saw a mass of ore as dug outfrom the ground put into one end of a long series of machines, whichcame out, without the slightest manual assistance, at the close of acourse of operations so directed as to bring it back to our feet, inthe form of a thin sheet of lustrous metal. In another factory a massof dry vegetable fibre was similarly transformed by machinery aloneinto a bale of wonderfully light woven drapery resembling satin inlustre, muslin or gauze in texture.

  The streets were what, even in the finest and latest-built Americancities, would be thought magnificent in size and admirable inconstruction. The roadway was formed of that concrete, harder thangranite, which is the sole material employed in Martial building, andwhich, as I have shown, can take every form and texture, from that ofjewels or of the finest marble to that of plain polished slate. Alongeach side ran avenues of magnificent trees, whose branches met at aheight of thirty feet over the centre. Between these and the houseswas a space reserved for the passage of light carriages exclusively.The houses, unlike those in the country, were from two to four storiesin height.

  All private dwellings, however, were built, as in the country, arounda square interior garden, and the windows, except those of the frontrooms employed for business purposes, looked out upon this. The spaceoccupied, however, was of course much smaller than where ground wasless precious, few dwellings having four chambers on the same floorand front. The footway ran on the level of what we call the firststory, over a part of the roof of the ground floor; and the businessapartments were always the front chambers of the former, while thestores of the merchants were collected in a single warehouse occupyingthe whole of the ground front. No attempt was made to exhibit them ason Earth. I entered with my host a number of what we should callshops. In every case he named exactly the article he wanted, and itwas either produced at once or he was told that it was not to be hadthere, a thing which, however, seldom happened. The traders are few innumber. One or two firms engaged in a single branch of commerce do thewhole business of an extensive province. For instance, all the textilefabrics on sale in the province were to be seen in one or other of twowarehouses; all metals in sheets, blocks, and wires in another; in athird all finished metal-work, except writing materials; all writing,phonographic, and telegraphic conveniences in a fourth; all furs,feathers, and fabrics made from these in a fifth. The tradesman sellson commission, as we say, receiving the goods from the manufacturer,the farmer, or the State, and paying only for what are sold at the endof each year, reserving to himself one-twenty-fourth of the price.Prices, however, do not vary from year to year, save when, on rareoccasions, an adverse season or a special accident affects the supplyand consequently the price of any natural product--choice fruit,skins, silver, for instance--obtained only from some peculiarlyfavoured locality.

  The monetary system, like so many other Martial institutions, ispurely artificial and severely logical. It is held that the exchangevalue of any article of manufacture or agricultural produce tendssteadily downwards, while any article obtained by mining labour, orsupplied by nature alone, tends to become more and more costly. Theuse of any one article of either class as a measure of value tends inthe long-run to injustice either towards creditors or debtors. Labourmay be considered as the most constant in intrinsic value of allthings capable of sale or barter; but the utmost ingenuity of Martialphilosophers has failed to devise a fixed standard by which one kindof labour can be measured against another, and their respectiveproductive force, and consequently their value in exchange,ascertained. One thing alone retains in their opinion an intrinsicvalue always the same, and if it increase in value, increases only inproportion as all produce is obtained in greater quantities or withgreater facility. Land, therefore, is in their estimationtheoretically the best available measure of value--a dogma which hasmore practical truth in a planet where population is evenly diffusedand increases very slowly, if at all, than it might have in thedensely but unevenly peopled countries of Europe or Asia. A _stalta_,or square of about fifty yards (rather more than half an acre), is theprimary standard unit of value. For purposes of currency this isrepresented by a small engraved document bearing the Government stamp,which can always at pleasure be exchanged for so much land in aparticular situation. The region whose soil is chosen as the standardlies under the Equator, and the State possesses there some hundreds ofsquare miles, let out on terms thought to ensure its excellentcultivation and the permanence of its condition. The immediateconvertibility of each such document, engraven on a small piece ofmetal about two inches long by one in breadth, and the fortieth partof an inch in thickness, is the ultimate cause and permanent guaranteeof its value. Large payments, moreover, have to be made to the Stateby those who rent its lands or purchase the various articles of whichit possesses a monopoly; or, again, in return for the services itundertakes, as lighting roads and supplying water to districtsdependent on a distant source. Great care is taken to keep the issueof these notes within safe limits; and as a matter of fact they arerather more valuable than the land they represent, and are inconsequence seldom presented for redemption therein. To provideagainst the possibility of such an over-issue as might exhaust thearea of standard land at command of the State, it is enacted that,failing this, the holder may select his portion of State domainwherever he pleases, at twelve years' purchase of the rental; but inpoint of fact these provisions are theoretically rather thanpractically important, since not one note in a hundred is everredeemed or paid off. The "square measure," upon which the coinage, ifI may so call it is based, following exactly the measure of length,each larger area in the ascending scale represents 144 times thatbelow it. Thus the _styly_ being a little more than a foot, the_steely_ is about 13 feet, or one-twelfth of the _staly_; but the_steelta_ (or square steely) is 1/144th part of the _stalta_. The_stolta_, again, is about 600 yards square, or 360,000 square yards,144 times the _stalta_. The highest note, so to speak, in circulationrepresents this last area; but all calculations are made in _staltau_,or twelfths thereof. The _stalta_ will purchase about six ounces ofgold. Notes are issued for the third, fourth, and twelfth parts ofthis: values smaller than the latter are represented by a tokencoinage of square medals composed of an alloy in which gold and silverrespectively are the principal elements. The lowest coin is worthabout threepence of English money.

  Stopping at the largest public building in the city, a central hexagonwith a number of smaller hexagons rising around it, we entered one ofthe latter, each side of which might be some 30 feet in length and 15in height. Here were ranged a large number of instruments on theprinciple of the voice-writer, but conveying the sound to a vastdistance along electric wires into one which reverses thevoice-recording process, and repeats the vocal sound itself. Throughone of these, after exchanging a few words with one of the officialsin
charge of them, Esmo carried on a conversation of some length, theinstrument being so arranged that while the mouth is applied to onetube another may be held to the ear to receive the reply. In themeantime I fell in with one of the officers, apparently very young,who was strongly interested at the sight of the much-canvassedstranger, and, perhaps on this account, far more obliging than iscommon among his countrymen. From him I learnt that this, with anothermethod I will presently describe, is the sole means of distantcommunication employed in Mars. Those who have not leisure or do notcare to visit one of the offices, never more than twelve-miles distantfrom one another, in which the public instruments are kept, can have awire conveyed to their own house. Almost every house of any pretensionpossesses such a wire. Leading me into the next apartment, my friendpointed out an immense number of instruments of a box-like shape, witha slit in which a leaf of about four inches by two was placed. Thesewere constantly ejected and on the instant mechanically replaced. Thefallen leaves were collected and sorted by the officers present, andat once placed in one or other of another set of exactly similarinstruments. Any one possessing a private wire can write at his owndesk in the manual character a letter or message on one of theseslips. Placing it in his own instrument, it at once reproduces itselfexactly in his autograph, and with every peculiarity, blot, orerasure, at the nearest office. Here the copy is placed in the properbox, and at once reproduced in the office nearest the residence of theperson to whom it is addressed, and forwarded in the same manner tohim. A letter, therefore, covering one of these slips, and saying asmuch as we could write in an average hand upon a large sheet ofletter-paper, is delivered within five minutes at most from the timeof despatch, no matter how great the distance.

  I remarked that this method of communication made privacy impossible.

  "But," replied the official, "how could we possibly have time toindulge in curiosity? We have to sort hundreds of these papers in anhour. We have just time to look at the address, place them in theproper box, and touch the spring which sets the electric current atwork. If secrecy were needed a cipher would easily secure it, for youwill observe that by this telegraph whatever is inscribed on the sheetis mechanically reproduced; and it would be as easy to send a pictureas a message."

  I learnt that a post of marvellous perfection had, some thousand yearsago, delivered letters all over Mars, but it was now employed only forthe delivery of parcels. Perhaps half the commerce of Mars, exceptthat in metals and agricultural produce, depends on this post.Purchasers of standard articles describe by the telegraph-letter to atradesman the exact amount and pattern of the goods required, andthese are despatched at once; a system of banking, very completelyorganised, enabling the buyer to pay at once by a telegraphic order.

  When Esmo had finished his business, we walked down, at my request, tothe port. Around three sides of the dock formed by walls, said to befifty feet in depth and twenty in thickness, ran a road close to thewater's edge, beyond which was again a vast continuous warehouse. Theinner side was reserved for passenger vessels, and everywhere thelargest ships could come up close, landing either passengers or cargowithout even the intervention of a plank. The appearance of the shipsis very unlike that of Terrestrial vessels. They have no masts orrigging, are constructed of the zorinta, which in Mars serves muchmore effectively all the uses of iron, and differ entirely inconstruction as they are intended for cargo or for travel. Mercantileships are in shape much like the finest American clippers, but withbroad, flat keel and deck, and with a hold from fifteen to twenty feetin depth. Like Malayan vessels, they have attached by strong bars anexternal beam about fifty feet from the side, which rendersoverturning almost impossible. Passenger ships more resemble the formof a fish, but are alike at both ends. Six men working in pairs fourhours at a time compose the entire crew of the largest ship, and halfthis number are required for the smallest that undertakes a voyage ofmore than twelve hours.

  I may here mention that the system of sewage is far superior to anyyet devised on Earth. No particle of waste is allowed to pollute thewaters. The whole is deodorised by an exceedingly simple process, and,whether in town or country, carried away daily and applied to itsnatural use in fertilising the soil. Our practice of throwing away,where it is an obvious and often dangerous nuisance, material sovaluable in its proper place, seemed to my Martial friends aninexplicable and almost incredible absurdity.

  As we returned, Esmo told me that he had been in communication withthe Campta, who had desired that I should visit him with the leastpossible delay.

  "This," he said, "will hurry us in matters where I at any rate shouldhave preferred a little delay. The seat of Government is by a directroute nearly six thousand miles distant, and you will have opportunityof travelling in all the different ways practised on this planet. Along land-journey in our electric carriages, with which you are notfamiliar, is, I think, to be avoided. The Campta would wish to seeyour vessel as well as yourself; but, on the whole, I think it issafer to leave it where it is. Kevima, and I propose to accompany youduring the first part of your journey. At our first halt, we will stayone night with a friend, that you may be admitted a brother of ourOrder."

  "And," said I, "what sort of a reception may I expect at the end of myjourney?"

  "I think," he answered, "that you are more likely to be embarrassed bythe goodwill of the Campta than by the hostility of some of thoseabout him. His character is very peculiar, and it is difficult toreckon upon his action in any given case. But he differs from nearlyall his subjects in having a strong taste for adventure, none the lessif it be perilous; and since his position prevents him from indulgingthis taste in person, he is the more disposed to take extreme interestin the adventures of others. He has, moreover, a great value for whatyou call courage, a virtue rarely needed and still more rarely shownamong us; and I fancy that your venture through space has impressedhim with a very high estimate of your daring. Assuredly none of us,however great his scientific curiosity, would have dreamed ofincurring such a peril, and incurring it alone. But I must give youone warning. It is not common among us to make valuable gifts: we donot care enough for any but ourselves to give except with the idea ofgetting something valuable in return. Our princes are, however, sowealthy that they can give without sacrifice, and it is considered agrave affront to refuse any present from a superior. Whatever, then,our Suzerain may offer you--and he is almost sure, unless he shouldtake offence, to give you whatever he thinks will induce you to settlepermanently in the neighbourhood of his Court--you must acceptgraciously, and on no account, either then or afterwards, lead him tothink that you slight his present."

  "I must say," I replied, "that while I wish to remain in your worldtill I have learnt, if not all that is to be learnt, yet very muchmore than I at present know about it, the whole purpose of my voyagewould be sacrificed if I could not effect my return to Earth."

  "I suppose so," he answered, "and for that reason I wish to keep yourvessel safe and within your reach; for to get away at all you may haveto depart suddenly. But you will not do wisely to make the Princesuspect that such is your intention. Tell him of what you wish to seeand to explore in this world; tell him freely of your own, for he willnot readily fancy that you prefer it to this; but say as little aspossible of your hopes of an ultimate return, and, if you are forcedto acknowledge them, let them seem as indefinite as possible."

  By this time, returning by another road, Esmo stopped the carriage atthe gate of an enclosed garden of moderate size, about two miles fromEcasfe. Entering alone, he presently returned with another gentleman,wearing a dress of grey and silver, with a white ribbon over theshoulder; a badge, I found, of official rank or duties. Mounting hisown carriage, this person accompanied us home.