By Edward Bellamy
1898
The narrative to which this note is introductory was found among
the papers of the late Professor S. Erastus Larrabee, and, as an
acquaintance of the gentleman to whom they were bequeathed, I was
requested to prepare it for publication. This turned out a very easy
task, for the document proved of so extraordinary a character that, if
published at all, it should obviously be without change. It appears that
the professor did really, at one time in his life, have an attack of
vertigo, or something of the sort, under circumstances similar to those
described by him, and to that extent his narrative may be founded on
fact How soon it shifts from that foundation, or whether it does at
all, the reader must conclude for himself. It appears certain that the
professor never related to any one, while living, the stranger features
of the experience here narrated, but this might have been merely from
fear that his standing as a man of science would be thereby injured.
THE PROFESSOR'S NARRATIVE
At the time of the experience of which I am about to write, I was
professor of astronomy and higher mathematics at Abercrombie College.
Most astronomers have a specialty, and mine was the study of the planet
Mars, our nearest neighbor but one in the Sun's little family. When no
important celestial phenomena in other quarters demanded attention, it
was on the ruddy disc of Mars that my telescope was oftenest focused. I
was never weary of tracing the outlines of its continents and seas, its
capes and islands, its bays and straits, its lakes and mountains. With
intense interest I watched from week to week of the Martial winter the
advance of the polar ice-cap toward the equator, and its corresponding
retreat in the summer; testifying across the gulf of space as plainly as
written words to the existence on that orb of a climate like our own.
A specialty is always in danger of becoming an infatuation, and my
interest in Mars, at the time of which I write, had grown to be more
than strictly scientific. The impression of the nearness of this planet,
heightened by the wonderful distinctness of its geography as seen
through a powerful telescope, appeals strongly to the imagination of
the astronomer. On fine evenings I used to spend hours, not so much
critically observing as brooding over its radiant surface, till I could
almost persuade myself that I saw the breakers dashing on the bold shore
of Kepler Land, and heard the muffled thunder of avalanches descending
the snow-clad mountains of Mitchell. No earthly landscape had the charm
to hold my gaze of that far-off planet, whose oceans, to the unpracticed
eye, seem but darker, and its continents lighter, spots and bands.
Astronomers have agreed in declaring that Mars is undoubtedly habitable
by beings like ourselves, but, as may be supposed, I was not in a mood
to be satisfied with considering it merely habitable. I allowed no
sort of question that it was inhabited. What manner of beings these
inhabitants might be I found a fascinating speculation. The variety
of types appearing in mankind even on this small Earth makes it most
presumptuous to assume that the denizens of different planets may not be
characterized by diversities far profounder. Wherein such diversities,
coupled with a general resemblance to man, might consist, whether in
mere physical differences or in different mental laws, in the lack of
certain of the great passional motors of men or the possession of quite
others, were weird themes of never-failing attractions for my mind.
The El Dorado visions with which the virgin mystery of the New World
inspired the early Spanish explorers were tame and prosaic compared with
the speculations which it was perfectly legitimate to indulge, when the
problem was the conditions of life on another planet.
It was the time of the year when Mars is most favorably situated for
observation, and, anxious not to lose an hour of the precious season,
I had spent the greater part of several successive nights in the
observatory. I believed that I had made some original observations as
to the trend of the coast of Kepler Land between Lagrange Peninsula
and Christie Bay, and it was to this spot that my observations were
particularly directed.
