“To tell you the truth,” she said at last, “I think that you have been asleep for about six hundred years. You must have been taking Schlafstrank, though I had no idea it had been so long in existence.”
“And, pray, what is Schlafstrank, and what are its uses?” I asked, whereupon I was told that Schlafstrank was an essence, discovered in the year 2239, by Ada of Garretville, while Senior Lecturer in Chemistry for that year. The uses to which this essence was devoted was to put people to sleep for a longer or a shorter period of time, according to the quantity inhaled or swallowed. While under the influence of Schlafstrank any amount of pain could be borne without causing the subject of it any real inconvenience, since no sense of pain or bodily suffering was conveyed to the sleeping mind.
Thus if, in unusual exception to the rule of perfect health which prevailed here, some dangerous or painful disease overtook any of the children of the State, be they old or young, they were subject to the influence of Schlafstrank, and then dosed or operated upon until the disease was conquered. In this way did New Amazonians avoid suffering, and it struck me as marvellous to picture them as the subjects of an accident resulting in a few broken limbs, and being unconscious of any inconvenience arising therefrom during the processes of setting and recovery. I was told that Schlafstrank produced no deleterious effect upon the body, although repeated doses were given, if the patient’s mind threatened to awake before complete recovery of the body had set in.
One thing mystified me exceedingly. I was told that Schlafstrank was not invented until the year 2239, and naturally asked what year this was supposed to be. No doubt there was ample room for amusement on both sides when I positively averred that the year 1889 was not yet at an end, and Hilda insisted just as positively that this was the year 2472.
Not a little to my surprise, an attendant knocked at the door, and presented me with a parcel, with the words “From the Mother.”
“The Mother?”, I queried, and Hilda, pitying my ignorance, informed me that the State was the Mother of her people, and that no doubt the parcel contained a suitable outfit for me. On opening the parcel, I found the latter surmise to be correct, and I was eased of the last remnant of embarrassment I might have entertained at the idea of encroaching upon the hospitality of others, by being informed that it was considered a personal honour for any individual member of the State to be permitted to dispense the Mother’s hospitality to all comers.
No stranger was permitted to seek private hospitality, but was provided, at the behest and expense of the Mother, with everything necessary for comfort while in New Amazonia.
I suggested that if this were generally known, the country was in danger of being over-run by loafers and adventurers of all nations.
This argument was met by the information that no strangers were permitted to land except such as showed good reason for their advent. If, by any chance, a person obtained access to the country who was inclined to abuse its hospitality, she or he was subjected to a course of labour which more than sufficed to pay expenses, and was then promptly expelled, one of the numerous fleet of trading steamers which New Amazonia now possessed being used as a means of transport to the culprit’s own country.
Hilda’s duties were not quite completed, but she told me that if I would induct myself in my new garments during her absence, she would return to me as soon as possible, and that she was deputed to inform me that Principal Grey and Professor Wise were prepared to escort me on a tour round the city, if I cared to go.