And these bodies differed as much as their natures from those I had been accustomed to see. They were short and squat; and this, with their broad chests, great heads, and long arms, would have led Europeans to call the Limanorans gnomes. Muscles and bones that in other men had been of little importance had grown into what we should have called abnormal size and strength. But after I had met the power of their eyes and felt the beauty of the natures that shone in their faces, their bodies seemed to me the normal garment of the highest human spirits; and I came to understand the high purpose of every change they had brought about in their forms and features. Without their broad chests they could never have had such expansible lungs or such powerful heart-action essential to easy flight, as well as to the lightning sweep of their thoughts and energies and the rapid advance of their civilisation. The pulse could be seen in many parts of the body, it was so strong; and its beats were twice as frequent as in my own. The great heat of summer was to them little inconvenience; they could thrust their arms into what seemed to be boiling water without shrinking; and they could bear a degree of cold far below the lowest temperature I had ever felt, for the high temperature of their bodies made them capable of enduring far greater extremes of climate than any race I had ever known or heard of. But their breathing was much less frequent than mine; they seemed to take in enormous draughts of air at each inspiration and to retain stores of it in their system. They continued at their ease in difficult atmospheres and exertions long after I had begun to pant and gasp for breath. The spaces within their bodies that had once been wholly filled with the organs of digestion and discharge had evidently been largely utilised for their marvellous expansion of lungs and heart.