In another moment I noticed houses and streets fly past us with magical rapidity, but this phenomenon ceased almost immediately, and I looked through the glass sides of the car upon a totally new scene. Dublin Bay, in all its glorious beauty, lay unfolded to my vision. But I was hardly able to appreciate it at that moment, for I was possessed by the idea that I was under the influence of magic. The magic subsequently resolved itself into a marvellous adaptation of hydraulic force. It was our car, not the houses, which had been flying with electric speed. Yet so noiseless, and so apparently motionless had we been that the illusion was perfect, and I seemed not to have moved. The pressure of an electric button stopped a car instantaneously, and at the same time prevented any succeeding car from passing a given point until all obstruction ahead was removed. These stoppages lasted only an infinitesimally short time, for all the cars, whether for passenger or goods traffic, were pulled up to the inner barrier of the double roadway, leaving a clear course for all cars which were still pursuing their journey. I could not see any water, but was told that the whole traffic of the country was run upon these electric hydraulic ways, and that water had been found so noiseless, so frictionless, so economical, and so superior in every way to the locomotive railways formerly in use as to supersede the latter a few hundred years ago. “Puffing Billy” in fact was now only a memory. The first line of one of Dagonet’s ballads, “Billy’s dead and gone to glory,” came to my mind as applicable to the motive force which in my own days was considered impossible to beat. His knell was sounded, when there appeared a rival on the scene who brought neither noise, dirt, vibration, nor smoke in her train. Accidents were of almost impossible occurrence on the hydraulic roads, I was told, and ordinary street traffic was not interfered with by these roads, as they were constructed upon elevated platforms. All persons using them paid a certain sum for the privilege. The State had entire control of the waterways, and derived considerable revenues from them, after paying all expenses, and remunerating the thousands of people who were employed upon them. The remotest part of New Amazonia could, I was told, be reached in twenty minutes, at small cost, as the waterway system scarcely left a village untouched. I was initiated in many wonders that night, being not the least interested by an inspection of the many strange objects to be seen in the shop windows, and by the universal good humour and happiness which seemed to illumine every face I met. My guides proved themselves to be admirable and patient cicerones. Fortunately for me, they recognised that my physical capabilities were greatly inferior to their own, and did not quite drag me about until I was tired to death.