But, seeing that he could elicit no comprehensible answer to his repeated questions—in truth, I did not know how to reply—he relapsed into an equal silence. And now the white bank that I had seen on the horizon began to assume crenellations, which in turn became buildings of immense height and symmetrical aspect. And I forgot my situation in admiration and amazement at the panorama that began to unfold beneath us.
The county of Surrey appeared to be an extensive forest, ending about a waste of dismantled brick, the suburbs of old London, which extended on each side as far as I could see. Then the modern town began: an outer ring of what I took to be enormous factories and storage warehouses; an inner ring, no doubt, of residences; and then the nucleus, the most splendid city that the imagination could have devised.
London seemed to be smaller than the metropolis of a century ago. I could see from the height of Hampstead, in the north, to the region of Dulwich, and from Woolwich to Acton, all clearly defined, like a great map unrolled beneath me, though I could recognize none of the old landmarks, save the unchanging Thames. The interior city was laid out in squares, huge buildings, sometimes enclosing interior courts, occupying the blocks formed by the parallel and intersecting streets. As we drove inward from the outskirts, the buildings became higher, but always uniformly so, the city thus presenting the aspect of a succession of gigantic steps, until the summit, the square mile comprising the heart, was reached.
This consisted of an array of enormous edifices, with fronts perfectly plain, and evidently constructed of brick-faced steel-work, but all glistening a dazzling white, which, even at that height, made my eyes water, and rising uniformly some forty-five or fifty stories. The flat roofs were occupied by gardens or what I took to be gymnasia, sheltered beneath tarpaulins. I saw innumerable airplanes at rest, suspended high above the streets, while others flitted here and there above the roofs, and a whole fleet lay, as if moored, some distance away, apparently over the center of the city, above a singular building, which awakened associations in my mind, though I was unable to name it.
It had a round dome, being, in fact, the only domed building that I could see. This covered only the central portion of the enormous architectural mass, and appeared to float in the air above an aerial garden, laid out with walks that radiated from a flat building, which filled the space between the floating dome and the roof beneath it. I surmised that this must be the new House of Parliament. The entire mass was surrounded by a double wall, with a roofed space of perhaps ninety feet from rear to front, castellated. Mounted on this were what appeared to be a number of large, conical-shaped implements, of great size. Long, graceful bridges on arches connected this wall with the domed building; and wall and building glistened from top to base so brilliantly that the glow seared my eyes like sunlight.
As we were now flying at a low altitude, I turned my attention to the streets, which appeared like canyons far beneath. Along these swarmed a multitude of travelers, dressed in two colors only, white and blue, the latter vastly predominating. I could see no vehicles, and I imagined, what proved to be correct, that the streets themselves were moving. Most of those journeying seemed content to lean back against the railings, the lowest bars of which projected, forming a continuous seat, and rest. Nearly all the streets were traveling in the same direction, those that reversed this movement being small and comparatively empty. From the presence of what seemed to be iron stanchions, set along the edges of these moving ways, I surmised that they were roofed with crystal.
Along the front of the buildings ran single tracks, connecting at regular intervals with the streets beneath by means of elevators, which shot up and down continuously, bearing their freight. These tracks were placed above each other at ten-story intervals, so that there were three or four rows of these aerial streets, ranging from the ground to the upper portions of the buildings, all filled with travelers. The buildings, each comprising an entire block, the elevated streets, with their graceful bridges flung forth across the chasms, the absence of any of the old poverty and dirt, and that huge gathering of human beings, going about their business in so systematic a fashion, fascinated me, and even aroused my enthusiasm.
Signs evidently indicated to persons approaching in airships the purpose of each building and landing-stage, but these were in characters entirely unintelligible to me.
My companion stayed the vessel in the air and tapped me on the arm. I started, to see him regarding me with the same expression of humorous perplexity.
“I must put you off here, friend,” he said. “I think I have done the best I could for you. You would have died in the forest, while here—well, there’s a chance for you. And it’s better to go to the leather vats for a few years than to die and go nowhere. I’ll know you if we meet again. What’s your name?”