"The heights of these fountains vary from 150 to 200 feet, and they are arranged in a peculiar disorder, which, however, conforms to an elaborate plan. The water rises in these colored tubes in green columns, then breaks into sheets and bubble-laden cataracts of spray above them, pouring far outward like blazing showers of little lamps in the full sunlight. Many of the tubes are inclined, and the ejected shafts of water collide above them, producing explosive clouds of shattered vesicles of moisture that float off or drop in miniature rains over the lake. This wildness of fountains extends over many a mile. All the jets are not in tubes. Many uncovered fountains are interjected amongst the glass pillars.
"The pillars vary in form, and have much diversity of aperture, so that the water shoots from them in every posture and form. It makes a bewildering picture. The exposure of water in the great lake or pond which holds these fountains is broken with waves, and the tempestuous scene with the constant excitement of the rising and flowing avalanches of water creates feelings of abounding wonder. The marble steps extend around the lake, and behind them on all sides rises the wall of the palms, beaten into motion by the wind blowing ceaselessly. The esplanade-like margin between the top step and the palm enclosure accommodated great numbers, while the benches in retreating alcoves, were also filled.
"It was a varied, exhilarating scene. The moving throngs, the wonderful confusion of the spouting fountains in their chrysalids of glass against the sky line, the perpetually waving fronds of the palms!
"We hurried to the pier of the Registeries after Chapman had secured the sealed envelope, in which were placed the communications to the government at Scandor. The canal which enters the City of Light at this point is divided into a number of branches whose confluent arms, about a mile from the City, unite into two parallel canals whose course we were now to follow to the City of Scandor. The small boat we entered was a curious vessel of white porcelain, broad and short, with raised keel, prow, and expanded stern.
"It was moved by some motor, electric in nature. A pilot took his place at the bow, and, under a canopy of silk, in the light of a setting sun, followed by the music of the City, we passed away from the City, which, even as we left it, slowly, in the descending darkness of the night, began to kindle into light, and send upward into the velvet zenith its phosphorescent glows."
CHAPTER V.
"It was afternoon when Chapman and I, fully equipped and provisioned, moved off from the long granite pier at the Registeries, after an affectionate parting from my guide and friend, who returned sorrowfully to resume his watch for his son, whose coming to Mars seemed to him so assured.
"How wonderfully strange and exciting it all seemed! Down the crowded canal we slowly moved, amidst the calling crews, the pleasant cheers, and beckonings of sightseers; and back of us rose on its hills the City of Light, that, as we passed still further away, and watched it in the fading sunset, began to glow, and finally, to shine like some titanic opal in the velvet shadows of the night.
"These numerous arms of the canal some miles from the City coalesce and merge into the enormous trunk canal that passes on to Scandor through hills and mountains and the plain country, excavated by the wonderful Toto powder. This trunk canal is doubled; upon one member, the boats pass outward to Scandor, and on the other the boats return. Branches pass north and south at centers of population, and of some of these which pass actually into the frozen depths of the polar countries, I may tell you later.
"As we slowly progressed into the undulating plain country, with its villages and farm lands, diversified by woods, and sometimes solitary projections of rock, as the stars stole urgently into the sky, as the phosphori lamps began their soft illumination of the decks, and while murmurs of songs from merrymakers on the land came to us in snatches bewitchingly, though incongruously mingled with the delicious odors of the Napi grass, I turned to Chapman, and felt that now, throughout the hours of the genial night, I would pour out unchecked the flood of inquiry that had risen again and again to my lips in this strange new life.