There are no mechanical modes of propulsion in the streets of
the City of Light. _The Martians all walk_.
"I approached the top of the broad hill on which the City is built, and
came suddenly out into a square filled again in its park-like center
with trees. From amid these trees rose a massive building, which I
instantly recognized as an observatory; the many round domes, as on
earth, were unmistakable.
"I passed up the walks of the square to the building and entered it.
"It was illuminated by balls of phosphori in glass globes, and its cool,
broad halls and stairways were, in the soft light, very beautiful. But
their wonderfulness consisted in the insertion upon the walls of
illuminated plans and maps of the heavens. These miniature firmaments
were all afire, so that each opening, carefully graded in size to
represent stars of the first or second or third magnitude, was filled
with a beaming point of light, and I walked in these noble corridors
between reduced patterns of the universe of stars. I can hardly tell you
how astonished and entranced I was.
"I had for the first time since I reached the planet the impulse of
speech, and I raised my hands with that motion of snapping the fingers,
which you recall was characteristic of me on earth, and _spoke_. I
cried, 'Here is my home.'
"As my hands dropped to my sides I felt resistance. I looked down upon
myself and could behold the changing surfaces of my body. Under this
completing stroke of volition the work begun upon the Hill of the
Phosphori and the Chorus Hall in reducing the intangible spirit fluid to
corporeal expression was now hastening to an end.
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