Written descriptions of scenery and of human activities necessarily fall short of the reality, especially when an attempt is made to record a series of events or a point of view outside the realm of our experience.
The first picture realized by the writer, and for that matter the most important one, was the view given him of Urid the Beautiful, one of the most Important centers of population on the planet Mars.
It was while lying in bed one morning the writer was contemplating the many messages being received from the Martian, who is the dictator of the subject matter of this book, that he found himself at a strange place, suspended as it were in the air over a beautiful lake of blue water, whose surface was broken by gentle ripples, due to the soft, balmy breeze blowing over the surface of the water. The writer was facing what seemed to be a westerly direction; and at a distance of about five miles there arose a series of small mountains about 2,500 feet in altitude. These mountains skirted the shores of the lake. The sky was a beautiful blue, bluer than the sapphire-tinted skies of our own desert lands. The mountains were tinted red from base to top, except where the moisture near the shores of the lake had stimulated a vegetal growth, whose green contrasted most harmoniously with the red of the soil. Two white clouds floated majestically near the peaks of the highest mountains.
The atmosphere was impressively clear and all objects seemed to stand out in sharp definition, a condition seldom seen by dwellers on our Earth except in extremely dry and arid regions.
On top of a small plateau, forming the crown of a low-lying hill at the base of one of the highest mountains, and about 1,500 feet from the shore line, I was startled to see a large city. The thousands of closely nestling buildings seemed to be built of white stone. The writer was lost in admiration, for there in front of him the pure white of the city, contrasting so vividly with the red soil of this faraway planet, stood the habitations of an advanced race many millions of miles removed from my own world.
The writer was impressed with the fact that, with but few exceptions, the buildings of gleaming white were all one story in height, and it became instantly evident that crowding is not tolerated by the inhabitants of this progressive planet. A few structures towered above the rest. These, as the writer was informed later, were the public buildings dedicated to the use of the people as lecture halls, centers for music and art, etc.
On a subsequent occasion the writer was shown a close-up view of Urid. Flowers, grass and green foliage abounded everywhere. The long streets were broad and well paved, and flanked on two sides with long rows of one-storied buildings of white stone, beautiful in their simplicity. No extreme ornamentation is carried out in the erection of buildings on Mars. On the contrary, the simple square outlines characteristic of our own Old Mission architecture seems to prevail on the planet Mars. The same simple style prevails with the public buildings, except that massive stone columns marked the portals of same, reminding one of our own early Grecian architecture.
Many palm-like trees grew all over the city, especially in the neighborhood of the public buildings.
A week after the occurrence of the above incident the writer was shown, in the same manner as before, one of the many canals that gridiron the Martian globe. This particular canal is one of the main waterways on Mars, and appeared to be about a mile wide at the point of observation. The water was of a deep blue color, denoting great depth. Along the banks of this waterway could be seen many houseboats or floating dwellings. Some of these houseboats were very large and evidently housed large families. The writer was informed that many Martians who have charge of the waterways dwell in these habitations.
The banks above the canal were covered with green grass and many flowers.