"You seem to have sculptured the city out of a mountain of white marble," I said to the governor, who rode his bockhockid alongside mine. "That is, indeed, the fact," replied the governor. "The entire city has been laboriously hewn from an immense mountain." "Then in building your houses, you laid the foundation with the roof, and built them downward until you arrived at the level of the street," I said. "That is precisely so," said he. "Our streets are simply ornamental chasms cut in the solid rock. Both roadway and building are composed of the same stone. One stone has built the entire city." I was surprised at the idea of the stupendous labor involved in carving a city containing half a million of inhabitants, but, considering that a man could easily lift a block of stone weighing half a ton in the outer sphere, I saw that even so prodigious a task as chiselling Kioram might well be accomplished. It was a new sensation to bound on a bockhockid over the smoothly carved pavement, where once stood the mighty heart of a mountain of stone. All the buildings along the route were wonderfully sculptured. There seemed no end to the floriated mouldings, pillars and other decorations in relief, wrought in a strange order of art that was most captivating. As for ourselves, we must have presented an interesting procession. Our Viking helmets of polished brass gleamed in the sunlight like gold. The emblazoned bear thereon was a symbol to the Atvatabarese of a species of divinity that protected us as beings of another world. We arrived at the temple of the sacred locomotive, and were received by the winged priests in charge. Dismounting amid the sound of music, a procession was formed, the priests leading the way along a wide hallway that terminated in the temple of the god. The god Rakamadeva was a glorious sight. On a causeway of marble flanked with steps on either side stood that object of magnic life and beauty in a blaze of metals and jewels worthy the praise of the priests, in itself a royal palace. This automobile car in shape seemed a compound of the back of a turtle and a Siamese temple, and was of extraordinary magnificence. Both front and rear tapered down to the solid platinum framework of the wheels, that extended beyond the car at both ends, the projections simulating the heads of monsters that held each between their jaws one hundred cells of triple metal, which developed a tremendous force. The priests chanted the following ode to the sacred locomotive: "Glorious annihilator of time and space, lord of distance, imperial courier. "Hail, swift and sublime man-created god, hail colossal and bright wheel! "Thy wheels adamant, thy frame platinum, thy cells terrelium, aquelium! "Thou art lightning shivering on the metals, thy breathless flights affright Atvatabar! "The affluence of life animates thy form, that flashes through valleys and on mountains high! "The forests roar as thou goest past, the gorge echoes thy thunder!