Another World Part 5

The colours in the sky are in great variety, and of exceeding transparency and brightness, some parts presenting ma.s.ses of gorgeous reds, golden colours, rich greens, and pinks of many shades.

The skies present also the appearance of a most irregular and uneven surface--as though there were high hills, some with their peaks, some with their bases, towards the earth, and with large s.p.a.ces between, so that whilst in one part these hill-peaks and bases appear only a few miles off, other parts of the sky seem very distant.

In vast mountainous and rocky regions is built our great city called Montalluyah, that is, "G.o.d's own City."

What are called the _External World Cities_ are built on the base sides and summits of many peaked mountains, rocks, hills, and promontories, girded, intersected, and undermined by the sea.

The City is divided into 200 districts each known by a name indicative of the situation:--

The Upper Mountain City, Summit City, Topmost Point City, The Lower City, Down City, Side City, Lower Under City, Sea City, Vale City, Ravine City, Side Country, The Internal City,

and similar designations.

Before my reign each of these districts formed a separate city. Great or rather petty jealousies existed between them, and much evil was the result; for they treated each other as rivals, and often as enemies. I decreed that all the districts should be called by one name, that the inhabitants of all should enjoy the same system of laws and government, the same customs and polity, and form as it were one family. I did many things to cement the union. I executed, too, numerous great works which a.s.sisted in promoting the growth of universal brotherhood. Many cities which formerly lay at immense distances from each other, separated by intervening mountains of immense height, I united by perforating the rocks, and building s.p.a.cious galleries through the hearts and bases of the mountains, and by throwing "aerial" bridges from one mountain peak to another. Henceforth I shall speak of all these cities as "Montalluyah."

Palaces and edifices of various forms, their gilded spires and minarets inlaid with many coloured transparent stones which sparkle in our brilliant sun, stand on undulating sinuous ridges, peaks, and terraces, rising one above the other in endless and irregular succession.

The houses are mostly curved, oval, or round. In Montalluyah straight lines are avoided. The houses are built princ.i.p.ally with a white stone, mingled with a peculiar stone of a bright sky-blue colour, both stones repellent of heat.

Gardens and verdure separate the houses one from the other. Most of the gardens are arranged in curvilinear lines, the houses being placed at the central point of the inner and outer curve alternately, so that each alternate house is on the outer centre of the garden curve, and each alternate house is on the inner centre of the adjoining curve. The undulating lines of terraces are broken by gigantic ma.s.ses of rock of various colours, red, green, golden, white, blue, silver, brown, and variegated--rocks of carbuncle, lapis lazuli, malachite, gold-stone, and many-coloured marbles.

These rocks and undulations are intersected by ravines, rivers, inlets of the sea, lakes, and cataracts, reflecting the many tints of the gorgeously coloured sky and the rays of our vividly bright sun, filling our city as it were with aureoles of glory.

In many parts the sea has made itself a hidden way, and runs its course for miles under the rocks, appearing again at great distances in one of the interior inland cities, perhaps at the bottom of a deep ravine or open s.p.a.ce; and the waters are often raised and collected for use and ornament in fountains and artificial cascades called water-lifts: whilst springs of fresh water gush out of the rocks, affording refreshment to the sun-parched and many-coloured gra.s.ses, flowers, and vegetation.

Great cataracts and artificial cascades often form the background to a great building or colossal statue. The effect of these large ma.s.ses of water viewed from all parts is extremely grand and beautiful.

Sometimes the ravines, rivers, cataracts, and sea-arms are pa.s.sed by huge bridges of the natural rocks, perforated by the sea, or opened by man to render navigation possible. Sometimes bridges miles in length are thrown across a great cataract or immense chasm where the rocks have been relentlessly torn asunder by the lightning and other electrical disturbances.

All the large bridges are covered with houses and gardens, which at a distance seem air-suspended cities, hanging without support over rivers, cataracts, large cities, and aggregations of houses.

Everything conducive to health is attended to: the supply of water to every part of the city is unlimited, and in each house, whether of rich or poor, is a bath, for sea and for fresh water.

We have "violet streams," which run for miles over beds of violets white and blue. The water of these is preserved in tanks erected at the end of the streams, trenches being cut to a.s.sist the flow. It has a delicious flavour, and is used for various beverages, but not for culinary purposes, since, when mixed with certain things, it turns black and loses its fragrance.

Trees, plants, and flowers perfume the air with their fragrance; whilst birds of endless variety and richest plumage have their nests in the tall and wide-spreading trees of varied-coloured foliage and fill the air with their music. In the trees are placed artificial nests to entice the birds; these invite others, which build their nests spontaneously.

The trees are large, their branches and rich foliage spread themselves in graceful lines to a long distance on every side and afford pleasing shade, their gauzy leaves subduing the light and producing the effect of soft rainbow tints. The trees also emit perfume.

The music of the birds harmonizes with the refres.h.i.+ng sounds of the running waters, cascades, and fountains; and that the effect on the mind of these beautiful harmonies may not be disturbed, the wheels of our chariots as well as the horses' hoofs are bound with a peculiar hide which, besides possessing great toughness and durability, has the property of deadening sound. Thus none but the most agreeable sounds reach the ear, whilst the senses are charmed with aromatic odours and the eye is pleased with beauty of every kind.

Arched galleries and pa.s.sages through the hills and mountains, partly perforated by the sea or electric fire, and enlarged by the industry of man, have a subdued light and make an impression of another kind, the red light in these perforated roads answering to the red shade of the outer world. These galleries and openings in the rocks are used to shorten distances from one side of a mountain to another.

The whole city is full of animation. The illuminated sky, the variegated plumage of the birds, the moving myriads of human beings, clad in rich costumes of divers colours; horses, elephants, camels, and camelopards, richly caparisoned; carriages gorgeously decorated, the golden domes of the houses, the many-coloured rocks reflecting themselves in the waters and in the brilliant skies, with their own aerial peaks and mountains brilliant and bright with our powerful sunlight--all these combine to produce a gorgeous spectacle. Moreover, the constantly recurring undulations and tortuousness of the ground are so great that it is difficult to proceed for a few minutes without meeting an entire change of scenery, as though one had reached a new city.

At one moment are seen mountain peaks rising almost perpendicularly to the skies in varying height, then a little turn brings the spectator on forests of houses, with ornamental gilded domes and hives of human beings.

Overhanging rock and mountain-forms of varied colours, the skies now scarcely seen, now reflecting their gorgeous tints in the sparkling rivers, cascades, and upheaving ma.s.ses of water, these and much more form a picture of which words of fire would fail to convey a sufficient idea to those accustomed to the sober, though beautifully subdued tints of your skies.

IX.

THE SUSPENDED MOUNTAIN.

"The uplifted Mountain Arm, as though raised in anger, threatens you and your little ones with destruction.....Let all hearts unite in prayer, that Heaven may inspire your Tootmanyoso with the means of saving the world from so dire a calamity!.."

The ordinary elevation of the tides is immense. They advance and rise to a height far beyond any similar phenomenon in your planet, and the waters retire in proportion, leaving at low water many miles of seash.o.r.e uncovered.

In Montalluyah the sun's electricity is very powerful. It is the power of the sun, and not of the moon, which princ.i.p.ally influences the tides.

A huge mountain ma.s.s projects from the elevated continent of Montalluyah for miles above the sea.

The heart and base of the mountain ma.s.s had been carried away from under the higher ma.s.s by some great convulsion of nature, leaving the upper part of the mountain without support, except by its adhesion to the main continent, of which it formed part. From the point of juncture the suspended ma.s.s extends itself out horizontally in the air over cities built on the ridges, sides, and foot of the parent mountain-chain, and far beyond the extreme bounds of these cities, for miles over and parallel with the sea, at a height which from the lower cities makes the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s rarely distinguishable from the illuminated clouds above.

The electric agencies in our world are very powerful; and it is supposed that at an early age of our world's history the mountain-foot covered with cities extended considerably beyond the land on which stand the present lower cities, and for many miles beyond the actual point to which the sea now recedes at low water, and that through a great electric disturbance, the upheaving seas of mighty waters rolled on, and, rising to an immense height--some think above the summit of the great mountain--with resistless force carried away miles of intermediate rock-land, which had till then formed the heart of the mountain.

When after some time the waters receded the mountain ma.s.s above the point of their ravages was left suspended, deprived of the support of the intermediate and nether strata, which before the upheavings of the waters had connected the plateaus and peaks of the mountain with the land beneath.

The suspended or aerial mountain stretches from the high lands of the continent horizontally through the air, just as one of your largest continents stretches into the sea. Between it and the sea below, however, is a s.p.a.ce to be measured by miles.

The sea in subsiding did not recede to its old limits; for a part only of the miles of the lower lands between the scooped-out mountain heart and the sea was restored to the world by the retiring waters, and the heart of the mountain having been carried away and engulfed for ever, the projecting mountain ma.s.s was left suspended not only over the land now covered by the lower cities, but for miles over the sea. Neither can be approached except by proceeding first for a long distance in an opposite direction inland, until the extreme point is reached where the sea stopped its ravages on the mountain's heart; the road then leads by circuitous bendings to the land below.

On the rocky ridges of the heart or indent of the mountain, and on the part of the mountain foot restored by the sea, now stand the middle and lower cities of Montalluyah.

The hanging mountain ma.s.s, with its promontories and high hills, presents all varieties of shape and outline, and is itself intersected by rocks, ravines, cataracts, and torrents.

One great torrent runs on for many miles, and having been swelled by tributaries into an immense gathering of mighty waters, rushes impetuously seaward, to the extreme point of the suspended mountain, whence from its aerial height it falls into the sea beneath, the spray bringing refreshment to the parched atmosphere of the lower and intervening cities, built on the ridges and peaks of the sea-worn heart of the mountain. This torrent, called the Great Cataract, forms a feature of great grandeur and beauty.

On the suspended mountain itself is built a city larger than your largest capitals, called the Upper city of Montalluyah. The Lower city, nearer the sea-level, is distant vertically about three miles from the nearest under part of the projecting mountain-arm above. The cities swarm with human beings, whilst the wealth of the districts is incalculable.

Before my time many of the under parts of the suspended mountain had broken from the parent mountain arm, burying cities and their inhabitants under the ma.s.ses of rock.

In the then state of science these catastrophes could scarcely have been prevented, but at that time the inhabitants of Montalluyah rarely thought of preventing accidents till after they had occurred!

Although in my reign the suspended mountain did not threaten immediate danger, I saw that unless means could be devised to support it, like catastrophes would at some time recur, and perhaps the whole mountain arm would give way, hurling the upper cities to destruction, and crus.h.i.+ng the nether cities under its falling ma.s.ses. The terrible consequences that would ensue were more appalling even in their remoteness than the most vivid imagination dared realize.

Acting therefore on the principle governing my polity--that of preventing evils--I determined to use the immense mechanical and electrical powers with which the marvellous progress of science had supplied me, to construct a work strong and durable enough to support the suspended mountain.