Chapter II: Here Begins the History of Hesperos

Of the shining city of Lucetta—How Dr. Van Varken met an apparent
Yahoo—Of the great astonishment of the citizens at sight of the
Doctor, and how they gave him in charge to a committee of
three—How the committee learned the Dutch tongue, and showed the
Doctor sundry strange and wonderful maps.

On recovering consciousness I found myself lying on what felt like soft grass on the steep side of a mountain. The sky was intensely dark, no stars were visible, and, of course, there was no moon. Before me, at a considerably lower elevation, and, as well as I could judge, at a distance of four or five miles, I saw what had the appearance of a very brilliantly illuminated city; the illumination was such as no artificial light known on earth could approach in splendour. So strong was it, that even at the distance of the place where I was sitting its effect was quite visible in lighting the hill. In front of the city was a large sheet of water, and on it were many moving bodies, probably ships, all of them lighted with the same strange radiance which pervaded the city. I looked at my watch, and, as might have been expected, I found that it still marked thirty-seven minutes past ten. I had stupidly forgotten that, during disintegration, the machinery could not have worked, so I was unable to verify my computation of the time required for the transit. The mercury in the thermometer quickly moved up to eighty-six degrees.

I judged it best to stay where I was till daylight, especially as I saw some traces of dawn appearing in a quarter of the sky which I hence concluded to be the east. I awaited the coming day with great eagerness, and, I admit, with some anxiety, for it would be hard to say what reception I might meet with. This much was plain—the planet was not destitute of some forms of life, and I had escaped the detestable Yahoos.

But, as the reader will soon learn, my conclusion was over-hasty. As the light gradually increased I began to make out at first the main features, and soon the minuter details of the landscape. The sloping ground on which I had landed formed the base of a high mountain. Dense forests concealed the summit; the lower part, on which I was sitting, was covered with soft short grass, and trees, most of them bearing some sort of fruit, were here and there scattered about. A few yards below me the steepness of the slope eased off into a gentle descent, and the mountain finally terminated on the shore of a deep bay of clear and still water. At the end of this bay lay the city which shone so brightly in the night; it was about five miles from my landing-place, and, as I afterwards learned, was called Lucetta. The opposite shore of the bay, which was nearly ten miles wide, was occupied by a lofty range of peaked mountains. The temperature was high, but by no means intolerable, and the air was perfectly still.

I saw no traces of any habitation outside the city, and no signs of animal life, excepting birds, were anywhere visible, but of the birds there were many and lovely kinds. I was greatly struck by the appearance of the sky; this was completely covered with a canopy of white cloud, seemingly at an enormous elevation. I was very desirous to get a sight of the sun, and, if possible, to measure its apparent magnitude, which I knew must greatly exceed its appearance from the earth; but the thickness of the cloud was such that no trace of the disk was visible. I had hoped, by this means, to satisfy myself that I had really reached Hesperos, namely, by comparing the observed magnitude with that which I had computed, and noted on a leaf of my pocket-book before I left Thibet. So I waited another hour, but seeing no signs of movement among the clouds, and despairing of getting an observation, I got up and walked down the hill in the direction of the city.

Presently the great steepness of the slope abated, and I soon arrived at a wide and smooth track which ran along the shore of the bay. The country was quite open; there were no walls, hedges, or any kind of fences—not even any of those notice-boards so familiar to the wanderer in civilized terrestrial regions, which address him by the name of Trespasser, and convey menaces. I turned into the road, in the direction of the city, and, after proceeding along it for about half a mile, I descried, at some distance, an approaching object, which, to my unspeakable horror, had all the look of a Yahoo.

As we came nearer the suspicion became a certainty. The creature was walking very slowly, and seemed to be quite absorbed in contemplation of a small article which he held in his hand. He was a man of middle age, with an exceedingly intelligent cast of countenance, and his dress did not materially differ from the Eastern costume which had accompanied me from Thibet.

So I could not at all account for the extreme intensity of his astonishment when, at last raising his eyes, he got the first sight of me as I walked towards him. He seemed completely paralyzed, gasped for breath, and for several moments was quite incapable of speech. Such utter stupefaction might have been manifested by the inhabitants of Lilliput and Brobdingnag when they first beheld Captain Gulliver, but in the present case there was no apparent cause for amazement. At length he recovered himself sufficiently to address a few words to me, none of which I could understand. I replied, but with the like want of success. I pointed to the sky, to intimate that I had come from another world, and then to the city, as a hint that I wished to go there. Both of these signs he evidently understood, and he turned back, and accompanied me in silence. I must do my companion, and indeed all the Venusians (or Hesperians) I have encountered, the justice of admitting that, though in Yahoo form, they possess none of the offensive peculiarities of the breed.

We had not gone very far before we overtook a young girl of exceedingly prepossessing aspect, walking towards the city. She too, on seeing me, appeared to be struck with the same overwhelming and stupefying astonishment which had produced so great an effect on my first acquaintance. I could not understand it at all. There was nothing in the personal appearance of either the man or the girl which struck _me_ as extremely unusual. Why, then, should I be so extraordinarily wonderful in their eyes?

When we came up with the girl the man stopped, and they talked in a very excited manner for some minutes. While they were so occupied it occurred to me that something very remarkable might have happened in the reintegration of my body on arrival at the surface of the planet. I might, for all I knew, be suffering from some grotesque distortion of features, or other bodily misfortune. But no, that was not the cause of their wonder, for, as the road ran close along the shore, I took the opportunity of surveying myself in the clear water, and the reflection showed, beyond all possibility of doubt, that there was nothing whatever astray with my personal appearance.

Presently, hearing a slight noise behind me, I looked back, and saw a vehicle on its way to the city approaching us. It was running swiftly, although there were no horses attached, nor any visible motive power; the wheels ran on two steel rods which I had before noticed lying parallel to each other on the road. As soon as the vehicle reached the spot where we were standing it stopped at once, and the man and the girl making signs to me to get into it, I did so. In the vehicle were about a dozen people, of various adult ages, the youngest seemingly about twenty years old, the eldest about sixty. They were of both sexes, and, with one consent, they all, old and young, male and female alike, received me with the same intense, and, as it seemed to me, needless amazement as the first man and girl had shown.

The vehicle resumed its course and ran on swiftly and with exceeding smoothness into the city. It was easy to see that I was the exclusive theme of the eager and excited discourse of the passengers. Their manner was very friendly, but their astonishment showed no signs of abating. A few minutes sufficed to bring us to the end of our journey. The car ran through a long and wide street, bordered on each side with rows of splendid trees. Through their foliage the houses were visible. Each house was separated from its neighbour by an interval of several yards; was but one story in height; and, so far as I was able to judge from a hasty glance in rapid passage, was very elaborately and tastefully ornamented. It was plain that land was abundant, and ground rents, if any, were trifling.

We soon reached our destination—a large open space in the middle of the town. This great square was surrounded by stately public buildings, some of them being of considerable elevation. One of these was especially striking on account of its gorgeous magnificence. It had all the look of a vast cathedral, and the roll of deep-toned music, much resembling the tones of a powerful and curiously sweet organ, issuing from the open portals, served to heighten the illusion. Though still early morning, many people were about in the square, and, as soon as we alighted from the car, I saw the faces of all the bystanders assume the same look of bewildered astonishment which all who had yet seen me so needlessly put on.

From all sides the people came running together; but there was no crowding or pressure; the multitude were most orderly, and seemed quite friendly in their demeanour; but it was plain that, for some mysterious reason, my arrival indicated a crisis in the history of the city. At last a young man, who appeared to be in a position of authority, mounted a low flight of steps which led up to the building before which the vehicle had stopped, and addressed a short speech to the assembled people. The crowd at once dispersed, and three persons came forward and took me in charge.

Two of these were men, one of them elderly, the other of middle age; the third of these custodians, as I had to consider them, was a very beautiful girl, seemingly about twenty years old. The countenances of all three were characterized by marks of extreme intelligence; and each of them had a peculiar look which is common to all the Hesperians I have seen, and which I can no otherwise describe than as a look indicative of immense and profound knowledge. These three persons, as I afterwards learned, were appointed by the man in authority as a sort of commission to take charge of me, and endeavour to ascertain what I was, whence I came, and whither I was going. The real cause of the intensity of the wonder which I excited everywhere will be explained farther on.

The elder man made signs to me to walk up the steps, and enter the large building beside us, which I did, the others following. The steps led up to a spacious hall, from which long corridors branched out in various directions. One of the men inquired by gesture-language if I wished for food. As I was by this time exceedingly hungry, I replied, in the same way, that I was quite ready for my breakfast. Whereupon they brought me to a room which opened into one of the corridors, where, on turning a handle in the wall, a sliding panel opened, and a table on rollers passed through. Various kinds of meats and drinks were on the table, and of these they invited me to partake. I made a hearty meal. I noticed, in particular, respecting some of the dishes, that they greatly resembled in taste various kinds of flesh-meat, very delicately cooked, but they were totally different in appearance from anything of the sort ever served up on earth.

I observed also that my three keepers did everything in their power to induce me to give the names, in my language, of every object in sight. The girl had a sort of small memorandum book, in which, with a fine pencil, she constantly wrote, in what seemed a system of shorthand, the words and sentences I uttered; and she and the two men repeated them articulately several times. They gave me the idea that they were much more anxious to learn my language than to teach me theirs. In fact, I afterwards learned that this was part of the instructions they had received respecting me.

As soon as I had finished my breakfast they took me into a large room, which opened into another corridor, and was hung round with all sorts of charts. Among these I saw, to my intense astonishment, a large circular map, about sixteen feet in diameter, on which, depicted with singular accuracy, were the well-known outlines of the continents and larger islands of the eastern hemisphere of the earth. The immense white masses at the poles, the blue colour of the southern and Indian oceans, the yellow tinge of the Great Sahara and Asiatic deserts were especially prominent objects. The process by which this wonderful map was made was afterwards fully explained to me. It was what they called a sun-picture taken by the help of an enormous telescope in one of the national mountain observatories, of which I learned much more afterwards.

They showed me several other equally excellent charts of the earth, exhibiting different portions of her surface. All of these were taken when she was in opposition, and therefore were all on the same scale. The committee showed great delight when I intimated my acquaintance with the details of the charts; inasmuch as this was a sufficiently clear proof of the place from which I came. I pronounced, as distinctly as I could, the names of the continents, seas, and principal islands, indicating, at the same time, by pointing them out, the localities named. All of these words they repeated as before; and the girl took them down in her rapid shorthand.

The extraordinary quickness with which these three Hesperians acquired the language of Holland would not be easily credited by an inhabitant of the earth. Still it is a fact that, by the simple process of constantly conversing with me, and recording every word I spoke to them, in little more than a week all the three could speak our language with great fluency; while I, who had a great facility for learning foreign tongues, had acquired only a few words and elementary sentences of the Hesperian speech. This training in our language was by no means confined to the three members of the committee. Each morning the results of the day’s conversation were faithfully reported in the Hesperian journals from the girl’s memoranda; and the whole population of the city engaged with heart and soul in the study of Hollandish—plainly with the intention of putting themselves as quickly as possible in the way of getting an explanation of my astounding appearance among them.