Oct. 5. For seven days we have ascended this silent, flowing river, and to-night we rest in the palace of the Prince. At least we call him the Prince, though Ferratoni has explained to us that the word hardly carries the thought as conveyed to him. One whom the others follow and emulate, he thinks would be more exact, but this would mean prince, too, in our acceptation of the word, and so “Prince” he has become to us, and we would not wish for a better title for this fair serene youth, whose unvexed spirit and gentle sway of those about him have wrought a spell upon us all.

We have enjoyed his bounteous hospitality, and often he has traveled in our boat, conversing with Ferratoni, who has translated to us. I have made no previous record, as I desired first to get some definite impression of this new-found country and its people. What their impression of us has been it would not be easy to say.

I am not surprised that we have awakened in them a vague wonder and uneasiness rather than admiration. 236At least Ferratoni says that this is the case. Our boat with its propeller has been examined with what seemed to me a mingling of mild curiosity and respect, and I think with very little idea of adopting its plans or processes. Its unbeautiful lines and the jar of its propeller would not accord with their placid and graceful lives. Our various instruments and our watches they regard with something akin to fear. Perhaps like our ancestors they consider them the result of witchery. When our balloon bag which preceded us was explained to them, as well as our adventures since leaving the Billowcrest, they showed little interest, and certainly found no pleasure in any episode of this somewhat turbulent period. The picture of Chauncey Gale being jerked and battered through a snowdrift did not, as to us, give joy, now that it was all over, and Gale’s neck and limbs still properly adjusted. To them it was a distressing, because unbeautiful, incident. Something to be deplored quietly and forgotten quickly.

For the people of this secluded land, if we may judge by those we have seen, are all grace, all repose, all serenity of demeanor. Ambition and achievement—of such kind at least as we know and prize—seem foreign to their lives. They do not venture—or very rarely—beyond the violet boundaries, even during the long summer day. The region 237without—the Land of the Silent Cold—is to them the country of the dead.

Any lingering doubt I may have cherished that my lost uncle had found harbor here has been destroyed by the fact that they have no knowledge of the world without. Something of its existence seems to have been dimly known to them by tradition, and perhaps through vague mental impressions, but heretofore no word from those beyond the great outer barrier has ever come to them. They have speculated very dreamily upon the matter—even more so than we have upon the inhabitants of other planets—and have made as little attempt to reach them. When we came nearer to their zone of vibration the Prince and his sister, who it seems are the high priests of this peculiar development, were able to establish some sort of communication with Ferratoni, whose mental adjustment is less foreign to them than ours. But it was an imperfect chord—a poor connection as we would say—and not until the Prince and Ferratoni were face to face and palm to palm was the result definite and tangible.

Their progress, such as it is, has been along lines totally different from those of our people. They resemble the Orientals in some respects—or at least the idea we have of the Orientals of a long ago time. From what I have seen I judge that their mechanical 238appliances are as those of a far antiquity. Beautiful, indeed, but to a people like us valuable only as curios. To this, however, there appears to be one exception. The Prince has to-day explained to Ferratoni a new process, invented by himself and his serene sister, the Princess of the Lilied Hills, for dispelling darkness. It seems to be a large plate of metal (probably a sort of yellow aluminum, which we at first took for gold and is the only metal we have seen thus far), and this is arranged to receive, by induction, electric waves from the Aurora Australis, radiating them again in the form of a continuous glow. At least, it is expected to do so—we do not understand that it has been perfected as yet, and as we are to see it later it is more than likely that Ferratoni and Gale will be able to improve it greatly. It appears to be the one real mechanical attempt of this languid race—the child of their one great necessity—and the Prince believes that when perfected it will strengthen their people and give them longer life.

As it is, they are enervated by the long summer day, and depleted still further by the long night that follows. When the first vigor of youth wanes, and often before, they pass quickly out of life, and usually, the Prince tells us, without pain. They regard Gale as old—and Mr. Sturritt as a veritable patriarch.

The contrast between them and us is ver............