"As we stood an instant at our places the people arose, and from some distant and concealed place, so situated I afterwards learned, as to gain access to all the dining halls, there came a swell and burst of jubilant music. It was so fresh and free and bewitching in its glee and ringing cadences, so consonant and accordant with the glad and illustrious feeling of the place and time, that my heart seemed to leap within me; and then it softened, and changing into notes of melodic gravity, ended in a splendid outcry of soaring, piercing notes--the salute to the morning. Long after the voices had finished, the rolling notes of an organ continued the loud outburst. "As we sat down, the conversation was again resumed and I noted then the singular clearness and suavity of this Martian language. I must hasten my narrative. I have so much to tell you. We ate the great cereal of Mars--the Rint--a delicious food, in which, as it seemed to me, the substance of a sort of rice was mingled with a creamy exudation in all of which was enclosed the flavor of the orange and the peach. This, with a fruit, a kind of milk, and many wines, forms the nourishment of the Martians. The fruits are most various, and every hidden or patent fancy of the gourmet seems elicited or satisfied in them. I cannot now describe them even if I recalled them. One commended itself to my taste strongly, a sort of nodular banana, holding a fragrant nucleus, like a large strawberry immersed in a savory juice, and coated with a rind stripped from it by the hand. It is of most stimulating qualities. It is called Ana. "Few implements are in use; the Rint is taken in short spoons and the fruit is usually manipulated with the fingers. The milk and wine are drunk from the most ingeniously devised and ornamented glasses, napkins of the Tofa weed are used, a pale green cloth, and large bowls of acidified water in which floats a morsel of soap are served at the end of meals. Great variety prevails, and individual fancy, taste, desire, or invention sway as with you on earth. "The breakfast over, the companies arose and moved out in clusters and trains to the avocations of the day. Many of these workers in the Patenta have houses throughout the city, while others living singly congregate in the numerous apartments, and enjoy these commons. The extraordinary assemblage I saw here is repeated in the other great communal halls where the artists, philosophers and inventors congregate. But the Halls are of quite different construction in each quarter of the City. "Accompanying or associated with these Halls are the Courts of Announcement and Recreation. Here lectures, conferences, entertainments, are given, and the people of the City flock in droves not infrequently accompanied by numbers of the new Spirits who here are often enabled to gain their final solidification; '_Gell_' as the Martians say.