As we review the surprising events of the preceding night, we also scan
the mountains through our binoculars. In so doing, we bring into focus
the flag we had planted the night before. It is waving lightly in a
gentle breeze that seems to be blowing up there, but to our amazement,
gathered around the flag is a group of about a hundred and fifty men.
They are tall and slender with the same type body structure as the
man we had met in the dwellings by the lake, only these men are dark
brown in color while he was so clear white that he gave the appearance
of being almost bloodless. Thereby we knew that they did not belong
to the same tribe as the fisherman. Because of their color we decided
these men gathered around our flag on the side of the mountain must be
dwellers from the hot side. They seem to be armed, as we watch them
closely through our glasses, and yet we cannot definitely tell.
They have observed our ship and see us moving around it, so leaving
the flag untouched, they come towards us. When they get within five
hundred yards of us, we see that their arms consist only of packs of
small arrows and a small instrument which we do not recognize. Later we
learn that these men were on a hunting trip, since they eat wild fowl.
Hearing the volley we fired to frighten the beast in the brush-forest,
they had come to investigate what it was, for the sound was as strange
to them as it had been to the beast! They were surprised and very
curious at seeing the ship and us there.
We were unable to use the same method with these men to let them know
who we were and where we had come from that we had used with the
fisherman, for now the Earth was gone from view. So we had to draw
pictures in the sand, depicting the Moon where we are now, the Sun as
it is just rising in the sky and the Earth as it dropped below the
horizon not too long ago. Then by drawing another picture of a ship
coming through space from the Earth to the Moon and pointing to our
ship to indicate it was what we were picturing, we succeeded in making
them understand what we were endeavoring to convey to them. Their
amazement was equal to the fisherman's when he had learned where he had
come from.
After their excitement had calmed somewhat, we took them close to our
ship and let them look it over all around from the outside, then we
invited them inside to see what was there. They were most jubilant
because of this privilege of examining the ship inside as well as
outside and not the least frightened by this thing that must indeed
have looked like a strange big monster to them.
We are much impressed by their behavior, for even though they are
filled with enthusiastic interest, noting every little thing carefully,
they do not touch a single thing with their hands. However after noting
everything carefully inside and out, they don't leave either. They just
stick around.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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