THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



309 



People they were of bright counte- 

 nances and attractive dress, but dif- 

 fering in every way from those I 

 had known in life; for it seemed to 

 me sure now that I was through 

 with earthly life and had entered 

 upon a celestial existence. They 

 were formed in lines of manly 

 beauty, the style of dress of each 

 being identical with all others a 

 rich, soft purple gown that swept 

 in easy folds from shoulder to heel. 

 Their skins were blue, not the cold, 

 har.sh blue of earth, but the hea- 

 venly soft tint of the summer sky. 

 Their eyes were a deep, glowing 

 red, beaming with warmth and 

 kindness, like the traveler's fire 

 upon the bleak mountain. Their 

 hair was ringlets of yellow, rival- 

 ing the sheen of gold. Clustered 

 thick around me their appearance 

 was pleasing. 



"To my eager, excited questions 

 they quick gave answer, and though 

 their tongue was new it was not 

 strange; I readily and quickly un- 

 derstood. I was first kindly in- 

 formed that to them I was a 

 stranger from the far-off earth, and 

 that I had fallen upon their planet, 

 which they called 'Emusra.' Fur- 

 thermore they told me that they had 

 watched my progress through 

 space and since I had left the earth 

 they had by aid of their powerful 

 instrument directed my course 

 through space, being anxious to re- 

 ceive a visitor from ejarth. I readily 

 learned that they were adepts in 

 science for they quickly showed me 

 their Universe Searchers, small 

 instruments that one could hold in 

 the hand easily and view the min- 



ute doing of mankind on the far 

 away planet which I inhabited and 

 from which I was unkindly thrown. 

 But, most noble judge, it would 

 take ages for me to tell you all 

 about those people. They lived and 

 had their beings in a different, a 

 higher, grander sphere than ours. 

 Their mode of living was reduced 

 to a science. Instead of food and 

 drink their sustenance was happy 

 thought, and they were far above 

 the grosser forms of life, physically 

 as well as mentally. 



"I found that 'Emusra' was the 

 scene of peculiar conditions. It 

 was but a small dot in space being 

 but 100 miles in diameter. Day 

 followed night very quickly, each 

 being but a little more than an hour 

 in duration to my mind but to these 

 people the diurnal change was 

 equivalent to ours and their days 

 and years were quickly spent. One 

 thing I early noticed and that was 

 that there was an extreme number 

 of beautiful birds, myriads of them 

 in the trees above and that they 

 were posessed of the powers of rea- 

 son and speech in even greater de- 

 gree than the men and women. I 

 was shortly told that the birds were 

 living the after life, or in other 

 words were the souls of those who 

 passed from life as a human in 

 'Emusra'. No one died on Emusra 

 but was 'restricted.' The planet 

 was densely populated, so much so 

 that methods were taken to thin 

 out the people. At certain places 

 pn the planet were 'Restricters.' 

 These were large machines of the 

 nature of catapulets worked by in- 

 genious mechanical devices. Every 



