Yet, while they realized that they had been rescued from possible destruction, I must not give the impression that they were altogether contented with their new surroundings, or that their queer native garments constituted their only source of complaint. Being normal human beings, they found abundant cause for dissatisfaction. And, indeed, they were not much to blame, for how could they adapt themselves immediately to an environment so unfamiliar as that of Atlantis? For some time they walked about like men in a daze; or, rather, like men who know they are dreaming and expect shortly to awaken; and they stared with incredulous eyes at the marble columns of the Sunken World, its sculpture-lined thoroughfares and statuesque palaces. And what wonder if they were dazzled and yet a little frightened by this beauty, which seemed to them so cold and alien a thing? What wonder if the more superstitious shuddered a little at times, and muttered to themselves in the presence of what they took to be the supernatural? What wonder if they missed the familiar things of the earth, the scenes and the faces they had left behind them, the habits they had discarded and the remembered life that was dwindling to a shadow? Fortunately, they were not always free to brood over their misfortunes. Like those of their shipmates who had preceded them to Archeon, they were at once supplied with tutors who sought to teach them the Atlantean tongue. Each of them received at least two hours a day of personal instruction, and each was required to devote several hours to various prescribed written exercises. It need hardly be stated that not all of them took kindly to this enforced application, for most of them were anything but studious by nature; but the tutors persisted even though their task was a hard one, and prevailed by means of that magnetic dominance I had often noted in the Atlanteans; and all of the crew, from the grizzled McCrae to the callow young Barnfield, were soon plodding regularly over their lessons in grammar and spelling.