"The morning of the next day was clear and beautiful. Shall I ever
forget that first approach to the mountains of Tiniti, where Mit and
Sinsi, the villages of the quarries, are located. All day long the boat
propelled through a diversified country, covered with morainal
heaps--great hills of drift matter, heaps of worn pebbles and rolling
plains of estuarine sediment. Much of this land seemed untouched with
cultivation, and sublime forests of the loftiest trees covered it. The
canal passed through solitudes, where the silence was only broken by the
cackling laugh of a crane-like bird, marching in lines along the banks,
or perched like sleepy sentinels amid the outstretched branches of the
trees.
"These wild and fascinating regions were often alternated by miles of
bright plantations radiant with the yellow leaves of the Rint, bearing
its deep red pods, while avenues of palms, not unlike the royal palm of
the Earth, led in long vistas to clustering groups of houses, and we,
too, caught glimpses of basking lakes on which, even as in the Earth,
the patient fisherman in basket-like circular boats, waited for his
flashing captives.
"Then, again, there were prairie-like stretches of a sort of pampas
waving in cloudy lines, the glistening pappus of the wild Nitoti, a
peculiar, low composite, that grows in abundance and furnishes food to
the strange gazelle of this latitude in Mars.
"This animal, the Rimondi, could be seen in scampering herds over these
plains, its horns making an hour glass form above its head, as they bent
to each other, touched, and then curved outward again to reunite a
second time.
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