I shall so far anticipate as to say that the city in which I found myself was known as the Greater City, in contradistinction of the Lesser City, lying at the opposite end of the inland sea or mere.
This body of water extends in an oval shape or form north and south, its length being approximately four hundred miles, and its greatest width at the latitudinal center two hundred miles, gradually narrowing toward the opposite extremes, where it gently expands into rounded bays, forming the extended water fronts of both cities.
The Greater City was clearly the original seat of the present civilization, from which it extended southward along both shores until it met at the southern apex and became the Lesser City. I was able, however, to distinguish but little, if any, difference between the two.
The twelve hundred miles of shore line is studded with farms, gardens, towns, villages, hamlets, private residences and public edifices, extending over highland and plain, as far as I was permitted to see, toward the outer boundaries, the location and character of which I can not even conjecture.
Many rivers, limpid and sparkling, coming through level and spreading valleys, and from almost every point, contribute their waters to the mere.
The current of the mere is phenomenal—not violent, but distinctively marked. Twice within every twenty-four hours it sweeps entirely around the oval, affecting one-half of the mere as it moves. With the early hours of the morning and evening it sweeps from north to south throughout the eastern, and with noon and midnight through the western half of the sea.
This current may be described as anti- or trans-tidal; that is, the general water level falls or is lowered on the side where the current runs, and rises correspondingly in the opposite half.
The effect is this: From 6 a. m. to 12 noon and from 6 p. m. to midnight, throughout the eastern half, the tide runs in from those rivers falling in from the east, and correspondingly rises and moves inland in those falling in from the west, and then the current flows north on the western side from 12 noon to 6 p. m. and from midnight to 6 a. m., so that for half the time the rivers on either side ebb or flow into the sea, and for the other twelve hours rise and flow to the interior, east or west as the case may be.
The effect of this is singular indeed, or it was to me. The rivers appear to run inland from the sea a part of the time, and then run from the landward into the sea for twelve hours, or an equal period, while the sea itself appears to be a subdivided river forever flowing in an elongated circle along the opposite shores.