“When I had finished an audible murmur of approval filled the room, and the most aged of the older men arising, and speaking in Martian, translated to me by the scribe, said: 

“’My friend, you have delighted us.  The time is approaching when we can, I trust, receive such visitors from all the worlds, and gradually bring it to pass that the visible universe may be bound together through the power and sympathy of language.  The Council desires that at present you refrain from sending your second message until you have visited Scandor, and seen something of this new world upon which you have so auspiciously alighted.

“’Heroma (Sir, Sire, etc., etc.), Chapman will accompany you.  The government at Scandor should be apprized of certain strange celestial conditions, and we are in receipt of news that at Scandor also unusual things are happening.  While all we know or have observed could be transmitted to Scandor, and all their own knowledge in turn sent to us by wireless telegraphy, for reasons which we are not at liberty to explain at present, it has been thought best to send the approved diary of the Patenta to the government, and also learn in return, by word of mouth, what has transpired at our capital.  It will afford you some opportunity to visit the Martian Mountains, and be more informed for the second message you are expected to transmit to the Earth when you return.’

“After a few salutations, in which interview I found myself face to face with the reincarnated forms of some of the greatest scientific thinkers who have lived upon our globe, I left the Council Chamber with my friend and Chapman, to prepare for our coming journey.  It was then that I entered more deeply the City of Light, and saw the unspeakable splendor of the Garden of the Fountains.

“The Garden of the Fountains lies over toward the great Halls of Philosophy, Design and Invention, whose domes and temple-pointed roofs of copper and blue metal I could easily discern.  It covers over half a square mile of space.  It is supplied with water from an enormous lake resting in the hollow of an extinct volcano, fifty miles to the east of the City of Light, at an elevation of 5,000 feet.  A great conduit or water main, as we would say, conveys the water to the garden.  The Garden is built actually upon piers of concrete and stone, connected by arches of brick, and through the subterranean chambers, thus formed, the division of the streams is made, and there controlled.  The whole was designed by the great Martian artist, Hinudi, whom some aver is the reincarnated Leonardo da Vinci of our Earth.

“The Garden is approached through a labyrinthine avenue made up of Palms, which on that side of the City seem to be plentiful, and over these palms in extraordinary profusion the vines of the red flowered honeysuckle.  You cannot see beyond the wall of green on either side in this winding way, and only as you gaze upward does the eye escape the imprisonment of its surroundings, where above the waving summits of the palms you see a lane of the bluest sky.