Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/128

106

N we flew over the green Delarue Ocean, till at length the white peaks of the ice mountains were lost behind the waves. Soon a blood-red line appeared on the horizon. It grew clearer and clearer. The shores were more and more defined. Then there opened up the long red forests of Tycho Island—the great island of Mars—the largest tract of land enclosed in the green ocean of the southern tropics. It was very glorious and gorgeous. The red forests waved like gigantic poppies or carnations in the breeze. We floated over them. Everything looked unlike what we all had seen on our own fair world, or I on earth. The tints were not the soft pale tints of our sunny home, nor yet the refreshing green or dull browns of the earth, but glowing gorgeous red and orange. The shapes of the trees were such as I cannot describe—quaint and extraordinary—a new phase of creation, and, to