As I proceeded on my journey toward Zodanga many strange and
interesting sights arrested my attention, and at the several farm
houses where I stopped I learned a number of new and instructive things
concerning the methods and manners of Barsoom.
The water which supplies the farms of Mars is collected in immense
underground reservoirs at either pole from the melting ice caps, and
pumped through long conduits to the various populated centers. Along
either side of these conduits, and extending their entire length, lie
the cultivated districts. These are divided into tracts of about the
same size, each tract being under the supervision of one or more
government officers.
Instead of flooding the surface of the fields, and thus wasting immense
quantities of water by evaporation, the precious liquid is carried
underground through a vast network of small pipes directly to the roots
of the vegetation. The crops upon Mars are always uniform, for there
are no droughts, no rains, no high winds, and no insects, or destroying
birds.
On this trip I tasted the first meat I had eaten since leaving
Earth--large, juicy steaks and chops from the well-fed domestic animals
of the farms. Also I enjoyed luscious fruits and vegetables, but not a
single article of food which was exactly similar to anything on Earth.
Every plant and flower and vegetable and animal has been so refined by
ages of careful, scientific cultivation and breeding that the like of
them on Earth dwindled into pale, gray, characterless nothingness by
comparison.
At a second stop I met some highly cultivated people of the noble class
and while in conversation we chanced to speak of Helium. One of the
older men had been there on a diplomatic mission several years before
and spoke with regret of the conditions which seemed destined ever to
keep these two countries at war.
"Helium," he said, "rightly boasts the most beautiful women of Barsoom,
and of all her treasures the wondrous daughter of Mors Kajak, Dejah
Thoris, is the most exquisite flower.
"Why," he added, "the people really worship the ground she walks upon
and since her loss on that ill-starred expedition all Helium has been
draped in mourning.
"That our ruler should have attacked the disabled fleet as it was
returning to Helium was but another of his awful blunders which I fear
will sooner or later compel Zodanga to elevate a wiser man to his
place."
"Even now, though our victorious armies are surrounding Helium, the
people of Zodanga are voicing their displeasure, for the war is not a
popular one, since it is not based on right or justice. Our forces
took advantage of the absence of the principal fleet of Helium on their
search for the princess, and so we have been able easily to reduce the
city to a sorry plight. It is said she will fall within the next few
passages of the further moon."