“’Chapman, where on Mars are we?  I seem to feel neither heat nor cold.  I see these flowers, the palms in the Garden of the Fountains, day passes into night, and there is no very apparent change of temperature, so far as feeling goes.  What are we made of?  Is this new body we carry insensible to heat or cold?  I feel indeed my pulse beat.  I am conscious of warmth in the sun, and of coolness in the shade.  I feel the wind blow on my cheeks, but all these sensations are so much less keen than on the earth, and yet again I realize that sensations are in some ways as vivid as on the earth.  The pleasure of my ears and eyes is wonderfully deep and exhaustive, the sense of taste rapid and delightful.  I am happy, supremely happy, and affection, even the hidden fires of love, burn in my veins as on the earth.’  Chapman looked at me with that bright smile he wore on earth, and his gestures of expostulation were amusing.  ’Wait, Dodd, don’t talk so fast.  You remember I had a slow way on the earth.  I have no reason to think it will prove any less pleasant to stay slow on Mars.  One thing at a time.  My own sense of position is not so secure that I can tell exactly all you want to know, and there are a good many things that the heavyweights up here don’t pretend yet to explain.  Now, where are we?  Well, the City of Light is about 40 degrees south of the Martian equator, not so far from what on earth would be the position of Christ Church, where you “shuffled off the mortal coil.”  Don’t frown.  Mars is a serene, sweet place, but I am not yet so intimidated by the lofty life here as to drop my jokes.  Some Martians strike me as a trifle heavy in style, just a suggestion of a kind of sublimated Bostonese about them, don’t you know.  Curious!  However, the ordinary Martian is gamy, good company, full of happiness, with a considerable fancy for jokes, absurdly addicted to music, and as credulous as a child.  Somehow, Dodd, a good deal of my earthly nature has stuck to me, and I revel in a dual life.  I have my Martian side, but I can’t, and this life can’t, knock the old foibles of the world you left, out of me yet.  I may get the proper sort of exultation in time, but just now I’ve imported considerable human horse sense.’

“He looked at me whimsically; I walked away, and watched the receding city.

“The motion of our white boat was so smoothly rapid, that soon, and almost unnoticed we had threaded all the many lanes, windings, and locks that led to the broad canals some twenty miles from the city.  We had passed laden barges, flat and storied boats carrying excursions or freight, and trains of smaller craft crowded with fruit brought in from distant farms for the great population of the City of Light.  The scene assumed a fairy-like unreality as night settled down, and the boats swarming with light, or else carrying a few red lanterns, passed us while their occupants or owners chanted the lonely lullaby of the Martians, which begins:  ‘Ana cal tantil to ti.’