Arched galleries and passages through the hills and mountains, partly perforated by the sea or electric fire, and enlarged by the industry of man, have a subdued light and make an impression of another kind, the red light in these perforated roads answering to the red shade of the outer world.  These galleries and openings in the rocks are used to shorten distances from one side of a mountain to another.

The whole city is full of animation.  The illuminated sky, the variegated plumage of the birds, the moving myriads of human beings, clad in rich costumes of divers colours; horses, elephants, camels, and camelopards, richly caparisoned; carriages gorgeously decorated, the golden domes of the houses, the many-coloured rocks reflecting themselves in the waters and in the brilliant skies, with their own aerial peaks and mountains brilliant and bright with our powerful sunlight—­all these combine to produce a gorgeous spectacle.  Moreover, the constantly recurring undulations and tortuousness of the ground are so great that it is difficult to proceed for a few minutes without meeting an entire change of scenery, as though one had reached a new city.

At one moment are seen mountain peaks rising almost perpendicularly to the skies in varying height, then a little turn brings the spectator on forests of houses, with ornamental gilded domes and hives of human beings.

Overhanging rock and mountain-forms of varied colours, the skies now scarcely seen, now reflecting their gorgeous tints in the sparkling rivers, cascades, and upheaving masses of water, these and much more form a picture of which words of fire would fail to convey a sufficient idea to those accustomed to the sober, though beautifully subdued tints of your skies.

IX.

THE SUSPENDED MOUNTAIN.

“The uplifted Mountain Arm, as though raised in anger, threatens
you and your little ones with destruction.....Let all hearts unite
in prayer, that Heaven may inspire your Tootmanyoso with the means
of saving the world from so dire a calamity!..”

The ordinary elevation of the tides is immense.  They advance and rise to a height far beyond any similar phenomenon in your planet, and the waters retire in proportion, leaving at low water many miles of seashore uncovered.

In Montalluyah the sun’s electricity is very powerful.  It is the power of the sun, and not of the moon, which principally influences the tides.

A huge mountain mass projects from the elevated continent of Montalluyah for miles above the sea.

The heart and base of the mountain mass had been carried away from under the higher mass by some great convulsion of nature, leaving the upper part of the mountain without support, except by its adhesion to the main continent, of which it formed part.  From the point of juncture the suspended mass extends itself out horizontally in the air over cities built on the ridges, sides, and foot of the parent mountain-chain, and far beyond the extreme bounds of these cities, for miles over and parallel with the sea, at a height which from the lower cities makes the superincumbent mass rarely distinguishable from the illuminated clouds above.