I was gazing back toward the Gnomons, when suddenly a group of the Martians we had first seen came around a turn of the road and over a knoll into full view of us. They were plainly surprised beyond all measure by my strange appearance. My puffed and corpulent figure, my bulging face of glass, my two long rubber tentacles extending back into my shell, must have made them think I was a very curious animal! Also they were probably surprised at seeing any living thing come out of the mass, which they must have thought had fallen from their moon, for she was always shying things at them. And I now had my first chance to study their appearance closely. "Doctor," I said softly, to see if he could hear me through the connecting tubes. As I had hoped, they proved to be very good speaking-trumpets, and I heard his answer noisily. "Speak lower; I hear you easily," I said. "There is a party of them coming down this road to descend to the city. They have stopped upon seeing me. They are nothing but men like ourselves. I see no wings, horns, tails, or other appendages that we have not. They are just fat, puffy, sluggish men, very white and pale in colour, and covered with a peculiar clothing that looks like feathers. I seem to be a far greater freak to them than they are to me." Had he been a million miles away, I should have known that it was the doctor answering, from his unsurprised and matter-of-fact tone. I imagined I could see the exact expression of his face as he said,-- "After all, then, man is the most perfect animal the Creator could make. From a mechanical standpoint he needs nothing that he has not, and has nothing that he does not need. However you change him, you would make him imperfect. Physiologically he may be much the same on all the planets, but there is room for the widest variations on the intellectual and spiritual side." "Do not forget that my patriarchal ancestors record that God made man in His own image, upon which there could be no improvement," I put in. "Yes, but modern scientists would have us believe that your patriarchs would have written a different fable if they had understood the theory of evolution. It appears that man is really a little lower than the angels, by being material and ponderable and visible, but the general image may be the same. Perhaps upon the various planets it may be that the same lines of differences prevail, as between the heathen tribes and the civilized people on earth. There at least we are sure that physiologically no marked difference exists between the lowest savage and the wisest sage."