Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/80

78 most fortunate. He is a power in the land, quiet, gentle and kind as he is, and willing to put up with so much in me that must appear very crude, raw and boyish. In four days I was fully elected a member of the club and had all the rights and advantages of that position.

Here are people who are conscious on Mars of their earth life; others who are conscious on both sides; some who are conscious of earth life while on Earth and of Martial life while on Mars, but not on either conscious of the other. These are but few; there may be many, but for obvious reasons they are not easily discovered. One third are like me, living on both planets; the rest can give records of various periods; I was introduced to one woman who for twenty years had belonged to the club and who had been "transferred" but three days ago.

I am very much impressed by a very commanding and handsome woman of about fifteen years of age. If royalty were a thing possible here I would call her a queen. I dare not attempt to describe her; she is not manly nor mannish; she associates on even terms with all of us but does not form any friendships. She appears to me to be a model of strength and gentleness; her eyes fascinate me and many others, and her voice has such a thrilling charm that most people are silent when she speaks.

One evening we had a small musical gathering in the concert hall of the club; none but earth songs had to be sung; she sang two what she called Scotch songs, written by one Burns, with such pathos that most of us shed tears, we were so deeply moved. One of our club, a cheerful little man, gave us some comic songs; and others gave samples of the music and sentiment of earth-dwellers from the time of Sophocles to that of Tom Moore. But the Scotch songs from Burns; those rang in my ears for days and weeks and led up to a closer acquaintance if not a friendship with Martha Newsome.

In the club buildings there are two large rooms, one devoted to history, and the other to geography of earth. In the geography chamber the central object is a most perfectly finished globe, mounted so that it can be turned over in any direction with a mere touch. It is twelve feet in diameter and ruled in degrees of latitude and longitude, each tenth degree being indicated by a red line. There is not a town of any importance left off this globe, and each town is correctly named, and on referring to the key, itself an encyclopedia of geography such as has never been produced on Earth, we find the small outlying villages belonging to the district named correctly. The mountains are raised in proportion to the size of the globe, and rivers and water-sheds, lakes and inland seas are all in position. In addition to the great globe there are a number of smaller ones, from two to three feet in diameter; one of these is a copy of the original made and compiled before the "Black Century." This gives an antiquity of ten thousand Martial years, nearly nineteen thousand earth years.

In comparing this ancient globe with the modern ones I was astonished