After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread. When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place, and there are no horses nor cows on the island,—indeed, frogs and toads are the highest vertebrates known there.
About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile. When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk; and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I became exhausted, they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way, partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose, announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it; describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall, until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.
At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day following,—the seven notes of music having given them the idea of weeks.
Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, (which was built for the use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon Castor's knee.
I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee, shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore, at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me, and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a long, long while.
So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left to myself,—taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different in appearance and character from the seventh mouth in their face, through which they eat.
In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected, of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own person.[A]
I was, myself, particularly interested in investigating the Martial language, which differs entirely from our terrestrial tongues in not being articulate. Each of the six lateral mouths of these curious men is capable of sounding only one vowel, and of varying its musical pitch about five or six semitones. Thus, their six mouths give them a range of two and a half or three octaves. The right-hand lowest mouth is lowest in pitch, and gives a sound resembling the double o in moon; the next lowest in pitch is the lowest left-hand mouth, and its vowel is more like o in note. Thus they alternate, the highest left-hand mouth being highest in pitch, and uttering a sound resembling a long ee. The sound of each of the six is so individual, that, before I had been there six months, I could recognize, even in a stranger, the tones of each one of the six mouths. But they seldom use one mouth at a time. Their simplest ideas, such as the names of the most familiar objects, are expressed by brief melodic phrases, uttered by one mouth alone. Closely allied ideas are expressed by the same phrase uttered by a different mouth, and so with a different vowel-sound. But most ideas are complex; and these are expressed in the Mavortian speech by chords, or discords, produced by using two or more mouths at once. A few music types will illustrate this, by examples, better than any verbal description can do.
The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to æsthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes, in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.