BUT long years divided my first visit to Oomalefa and my admission to Firlalain. I saw that there were certain vast sections of Oomalefa that I was led past; massive portals showed their rank, but the number on them defining the age at which entrance was possible warned us off, and allegorical pictures adorning their arches figured the decay of tissue and cell that would result in the youthful body from too early admittance. Any curiosity Thyriel or I could have felt was repressed by these ominous symbols; for this people never relied on mere authority. Their strongest prohibitions were in the form of graphic appeals to the reason, and only where these could not impress youthful natures sufficiently were the emotions involved; the influences of any special indulgence upon the human system were represented in living form, which, looked at through a medium magnifying them ten thousand-fold, stirred the heart of all the more deeply. We saw in a moment that we were unfit to enter Firlalain, and we passed on into the vast series of baths wherein the Limanorans could rid their bodies of obstructive or noxious elements. Here was every grade of temperature endurable by their tissues: for every grade there was a separate swimming-pool in which they could exercise themselves; and every hour automatic machinery driven by force from Rimla sent the contents of each pool into one of the lava wells, where in a few moments the water and all the débris thrown off from the bathers’ bodies vanished in fire. These baths were so arranged that not more than two should be empty together, and at the general entrance were seated two medical counsellors, who measured and tested the state and temperature of the body, and showed graphically what would be the effect of entering each bath of the series to which the state of the bather restricted him.