“As you draw near the debouchment (into the garden) of this oscillating road, the splash and roar of falling waters invades your retreat.  And then suddenly as if a curtain had arisen or dropped to the earth you emerge upon a great marble terrace of steps, and before you is spread a forest of geysers distributed in entrancing vistas in a lake of tumbling and scintillating waters.  The scene is amazing and transporting.  Rushing jets of water are enclosed in hollow pillars of glass, whose lines are ravishingly combined in the separate clusters of fountains.

“The heights of these fountains vary from 150 to 200 feet, and they are arranged in a peculiar disorder, which, however, conforms to an elaborate plan.  The water rises in these colored tubes in green columns, then breaks into sheets and bubble-laden cataracts of spray above them, pouring far outward like blazing showers of little lamps in the full sunlight.  Many of the tubes are inclined, and the ejected shafts of water collide above them, producing explosive clouds of shattered vesicles of moisture that float off or drop in miniature rains over the lake.  This wildness of fountains extends over many a mile.  All the jets are not in tubes.  Many uncovered fountains are interjected amongst the glass pillars.

“The pillars vary in form, and have much diversity of aperture, so that the water shoots from them in every posture and form.  It makes a bewildering picture.  The exposure of water in the great lake or pond which holds these fountains is broken with waves, and the tempestuous scene with the constant excitement of the rising and flowing avalanches of water creates feelings of abounding wonder.  The marble steps extend around the lake, and behind them on all sides rises the wall of the palms, beaten into motion by the wind blowing ceaselessly.  The esplanade-like margin between the top step and the palm enclosure accommodated great numbers, while the benches in retreating alcoves, were also filled.

“It was a varied, exhilarating scene.  The moving throngs, the wonderful confusion of the spouting fountains in their chrysalids of glass against the sky line, the perpetually waving fronds of the palms!

“We hurried to the pier of the Registeries after Chapman had secured the sealed envelope, in which were placed the communications to the government at Scandor.  The canal which enters the City of Light at this point is divided into a number of branches whose confluent arms, about a mile from the City, unite into two parallel canals whose course we were now to follow to the City of Scandor.  The small boat we entered was a curious vessel of white porcelain, broad and short, with raised keel, prow, and expanded stern.

“It was moved by some motor, electric in nature.  A pilot took his place at the bow, and, under a canopy of silk, in the light of a setting sun, followed by the music of the City, we passed away from the City, which, even as we left it, slowly, in the descending darkness of the night, began to kindle into light, and send upward into the velvet zenith its phosphorescent glows.”