"Hili-li is a city of from one to two hundred thousand people. But, oh, lovely beyond power of language to describe!--past all conception, and comparable alone with fancies such as float through the brain of poet-lover as he lies dreaming of his soul's desire. I draw my conclusions from Peters' state of mind when he attempts to describe this strange city, rather than from what he says; and also from some of Pym's remarks on the subject, which Peters was able to repeat. In your imagination, compass within an area two miles in diameter the choicest beauties of ancient Greece and Egypt, Rome and Persia; then brighten them with natural surrounding scenery such as Homer and Dante and Milton might have dreamed of--and you may feel a little of what Pym and Peters felt when first they saw this glorious island. In ancient Greece a true democrat would have been displeased with the extreme discrepancy between the grandeur of public buildings, and the poverty of private dwellings; but in Hili-li these two bore a perfectly just relationship of elegance, each in its way being perfect. "Yet mere inanimate beauties were the least of all. Even Peters, old and dying--never a man to whom art spoke in more than whispers--even he was aroused from the arms of death when he spoke of the women of Hili-li. 'Were they blondes?' I asked him. 'No.' 'Were they brunettes?' 'No.' They were simply entrancing--never to be forgotten. Each and everyone of them, like Helen, won by her mere presence the adoration of man. And the men--even they must have been superb--were types of perfect manly elegance. "I spent many hours in trying to draw from Peters facts which I might put together and so become competent to explain the perfection, physical and mental--for they possessed both of these charms--of the Hili-lites. And after combining what Peters could describe, and what he could recall of Pym's sayings, with a statement or two of the natives that clings in the old man's memory, I formed what I am able to assure you is a reliable opinion of the origin of the Hili-lite race: