since the discovery of vril, and the results attending that discovery had dispensed with their uses.  Machinery and the invention of wings had superseded the horse as a beast of burden; and the dog was no longer wanted either for protection or the chase, as it had been when the ancestors of the Vril-ya feared the aggressions of their own kind, or hunted the lesser animals for food.  Indeed, however, so far as the horse was concerned, this region was so rocky that a horse could have been, there, of little use either for pastime or burden.  The only creature they use for the latter purpose is a kind of large goat which is much employed on farms.  The nature of the surrounding soil in these districts may be said to have first suggested the invention of wings and air-boats.  The largeness of space in proportion to the space occupied by the city, was occasioned by the custom of surrounding every house with a separate garden.  The broad main street, in which Aph-Lin dwelt, expanded into a vast square, in which were placed the College of Sages and all the public offices; a magnificent fountain of the luminous fluid which I call naptha (I am ignorant of its real nature) in the centre.  All these public edifices have a uniform character of massiveness and solidity.  They reminded me of the architectural pictures of Martin.  Along the upper stories of each ran a balcony, or rather a terraced garden, supported by columns, filled with flowering plants, and tenanted by many kinds of tame birds.

From the square branched several streets, all broad and brilliantly lighted, and ascending up the eminence on either side.  In my excursions in the town I was never allowed to go alone; Aph-Lin or his daughter was my habitual companion.  In this community the adult Gy is seen walking with any young An as familiarly as if there were no difference of sex.

The retail shops are not very numerous; the persons who attend on a customer are all children of various ages, and exceedingly intelligent and courteous, but without the least touch of importunity or cringing.  The shopkeeper himself might or might not be visible; when visible, he seemed rarely employed on any matter connected with his professional business; and yet he had taken to that business from special liking for it, and quite independently of his general sources of fortune.

The Ana of the community are, on the whole, an indolent set of beings after the active age of childhood.  Whether by temperament or philosophy, they rank repose among the chief blessings of life.  Indeed, when you take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet.

In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that of their wings.  But for their sports or (to indulge in a bold misuse of terms) their public ‘promenades,’ they employ the latter, also for the aerial dances I have described, as well as for visiting their country places, which are mostly placed on lofty heights; and, when still young, they prefer their wings for travel into the other regions of the Ana, to vehicular conveyances.