transit, it also became obviously impossible that we should have houses above ground. Aviation is a source of danger to such houses, and the houses themselves were dangerous to the aviator. Our buildings are all subterranean. We avoid danger of every kind. We dislike risk. You cannot see my house to which I am taking you, but as a matter of fact it is less than a quarter of a mile away."

He went so slowly that I had to abate my usual pace, lest I should outstrip my guide. As he moved, he looked a little like a very small tired elephant.

"Aviation," I said. "I suppose that with you that has been carried to a great point of perfection."

"On the contrary," he said, "it is superseded. It is a back number. We no longer use it. But we have seen no reason to change our style of domicile, which possesses many advantages."

"And what is it?" I asked, "that has superseded aviation?"

"It is the power to dissipate and subsequently reconstruct identically at some different point the atoms of any organism or group of organisms."

"I don't think I understand," I said.

"It is natural that you should not. However, here we are at my house."

It looked to me rather as if we had come to an ordinary well, the interior of which was occupied by a spiral descending incline.

"You will observe," he said, "that when I am weary of exertion and return to my house, I descend. In the old type of house it was customary to ascend."

I should calculate that we descended some thirty-five or forty feet below the surface. At this point we were confronted by a perfectly ordinary door with a brass knocker on it and an electric light above it. On the door were painted the letters and figures MZ04. He opened the door with a small latchkey, which he produced from one of his boots. The keyhole and the handle were placed at such a height that it was easy for him to reach them without assuming the erect position. We went through into a small hall, brightly lit and containing no furniture but a door-mat, on which my guide wiped his four boots carefully. He then requested me to come with him into the dining-room, as indeed I was by no means reluctant to do.

On entering this room, however, I was disappointed, for it bore no resemblance whatever to a dining-room, and there was no look of good cheer about it. Its walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled with numbered bottles containing what looked like small pills. In the middle of the room, immediately under the light, was a low table, on which were a row of small aluminium cups and a leather-bound book. There was no other furniture of any description.

"You are looking for a chair perhaps," said my host presently. "We have none. To stand erect on the feet is a precarious position, and to sit is hardly less precarious. We avoid all risk. On all fours or in a recumbent position one is safe. However, if you would like to sit on the floor, pray do so, while I make up the prescription which you require."

I sat down on the floor, which was very hard and discouraging. I did not greatly like that use of the word "prescription," and my inner man cried rather for butcher's meat than for chemist's stuff. However, a man must take his adventures as he finds them.

My guide slipped his hands out of his boots and consulted the volume on the table. "From long use," he said meditatively, "I know most of the numbers by heart; but I cannot recall what is taken for a chill caused by prolonged submersion in sea-water. I have never had occasion to use it. Ah, here we are! Number one hundred and one."

He took down the bottle which bore that number, and dropped one pill from it into an aluminium cup. I noticed that the shelves were all placed low on the wall. But indeed the whole of the appointments and furniture of the house was adapted for beings who used the quadrupedal position. I noticed, moreover, both now and afterwards, what very little furniture there was in these houses. The hatred of superfluity was a marked characteristic of the people of Thule.

My host took down one bottle after another from the shelves, talking as he did so. Each bottle had an ingenious stopper, which allowed one pill, and only one, to fall out each time that the bottle was reversed.

"I have never eaten shark, cooked or uncooked," said my host, "but I should imagine that a diet confined to this meat would give an excess of nitrogen. We correct that with one of number eighteen. To this I add our ordinary repast—numbers one, two, and three—a corrective for exhaustion from number sixty-four, and a pill of a narcotic character from sixty-eight."

He handed me the little aluminium cup with the pills in it. "I think," he said, "that is all you require."

"I am extremely thirsty," I said.

"No civilised man eats and drinks at the same time." He whisked down another bottle and dropped one more pill into my cup. "You will find," he said, "that little addition will remove all sensation of thirst. You shall drink when the right time comes."

I took my pills obediently and was now conducted by him into a much smaller room on the same level. I afterwards saw other subterranean houses in the island. They were all alike in plan, and the rooms were all small and so low that when I stood erect I could easily touch the ceiling with my hand. The total absence of decoration, and the simplicity and scarcity of the furniture, were not specially characteristic of my host. Æsthetic pleasure was very slightly appreciated by any of the first-class beings in Thule.

A pneumatic mattress lay at one end of the room which we had now entered, and there were two dials on the wall, each provided with a moving hand. There was no other furniture of any kind.

"There is your bed," said my host. "Now sleep."

"I should hardly have called it a bed," I said dubiously.

"It is not the barbarian idea of a bed. We abandoned bed-clothes of every description long ago. They are not hygienic. All that is necessary is to raise the temperature of the room in which the sleeper lies. This you can easily do by altering the hand on the first of these dials, which controls the heat. It stands at present at fifteen. When I sleep I generally put it up to twenty. We will try it at twenty, and you can advance it farther if you find yourself chilly. The other dial controls the lighting and gives you five degrees of light down to absolute darkness."

"I wonder," I said, "if I might have my clothes dried. They are still damp, I fear."

He looked at my garments with marked distaste.

"If you will put them outside the door," he said, "I will see that they are thrown into the refuse-destructor, and will order proper clothes to be provided for you in their place. You will sleep for one hour, and shortly after that I shall return. By the way, how comes it that you speak our language?"

"I speak English," I said.

"English," he said meditatively. "English. I have heard that word somewhere. No, don't explain. I can easily obtain the information."

He now left me. I put the hand on the heat dial at twenty-five. Although I had no clothes of any description, I felt pleasantly warm, and in spite of the excitement caused by the novelty of my experience, I soon fell asleep. This may be ascribed either to the fatigues I had undergone or to the potency of the drugs administered to me.

CHAPTER II

When I awoke, it seemed to me that I must have slept for some six or eight hours, yet it had been but one hour only. I felt perfectly refreshed and well. I had shut off nearly all the light before falling asleep, and I now groped my way to the light dial and moved the hand round until the room was brightly illuminated. The silence of the place was remarkable; it was almost as if I had been in an uninhabited house. I opened the door of my room a little way, and was pleased to find a bundle of clothes awaiting me outside. I brought the bundle in and investigated it. At first sight it looked as