In the sedentary towns, on the other hand, the houses are made with great strong screws running from the cellars to the roofs, which enable them to be raised or lowered at discretion. The depth of the cellar is equal to the height of every house; in winter, the whole structure is lowered below the surface of the ground; in spring, it is lifted up again by means of the screw.
As, owing to the father's neglect, the house in which we were staying could not set sail until the next day, my companion and I accepted an invitation to stay the night there. Our host then sent for a doctor, who prescribed what foods I should smell, and what kind of bed I should lie in.
"But I am not sick!" I said to the Man of the Sun.
"If you were," he replied, "the doctor would not have been sent for. On the Moon, doctors are not paid to cure men, but to keep them in good health. They are officers of the state, and, once a day, they call at every house, and instruct the inmates how to preserve their natural vigour."
"I wish," I. said, "you could get him to order me a dozen roasted larks instead of the mere smell of them. I should like to taste some solid food just for a change."
He spoke to the doctor, and at a sign from him, our host took a gun and led me into his garden.
"Are those the kind of birds you mean?" he said, pointing to a great swarm of larks singing high up in the sky.
I replied that they were, and he shot at them, and thirty larks tumbled over at our feet, not merely dead, but plucked, seasoned, and roasted.
"You see," said my host, "we mix with our gunpowder and shot a certain composition which cooks as well as kills."
I picked up one of the birds and ate it. In sober truth, I have never tasted on Earth anything so deliciously roasted.