“The proper course of the river,” he said, “lies at the foot of those hills.  But this would take us out of our road, and, moreover, the stream is not navigable for many stoloi above the turning-point.  We shall hold on nearly in the same direction as the present till we land at their foot.”

“And how,” I said, “are we to cross them?”

“At your choice, either by carriage or by balloon,” he said.  “There is at our landing-place a town in which we shall easily procure either.”

“But,” said I, “though our luggage is far less heavy than would be that of a bride on Earth, and Eveena’s forms the smallest portion of it, I should fancy that it must be inconveniently heavy for a balloon.”

“Certainly,” he replied; “but we could send it by carriage even over the mountain roads.  The boat, however, will go on, and will meet us some thirty miles beyond the point where we leave it.”

“And how is the boat to pass over the hills?”

“Not over, but under,” he said, smiling.  “There is no natural passage entirely through the range, but there is within it a valley the bottom of which is not much higher than this plain.  Of the thirty miles to be traversed, about one-half lies in the course of this valley, along which an artificial canal has been made.  Through the hills at either end a tunnel has been cut, the one of six, the other of about nine miles in length, affording a perfectly safe and easy course for the boat; and it is through these that nearly all the heavy traffic passing in this direction is conveyed.”

“I should like,” I said, “if it be possible, to pass through one at least of these tunnels, unless there be on the mountains themselves something especially worth seeing.”

“Nothing,” he replied.  “They are low, none much exceeding the height of that from which you descended.”

Eveena now joined us on deck, and we amused ourselves for the next two hours in observing the different animals, of which such numbers were to be seen at every turn, domesticated and trained for one or other of the many methods in which the brutes can serve the convenience, the sustenance, or the luxury of man.  Animal food is eaten on Mars; but the flesh of birds and fish is much more largely employed than that of quadrupeds, and eggs and milk enter into the cuisine far more extensively than either.  In fact, flesh and fish are used much as they seem to have been in the earlier period of Greek civilisation, as relish and supplement to fruits, vegetables, and farinaceous dishes, rather than as the principal element of food.  As their training and their extreme tameness indicate, domestic creatures, even those destined only to serve as food or to furnish clothing, are treated not indeed with tenderness, but with gentleness, and without either the neglect or the cruelty which so revolt humane men in witnessing the treatment of Terrestrial animals by those who have personal charge of them.  To describe any considerable number