It is scarcely egotistical for me to say that I was much sought after, not only by the citizens of Thursia, but by many distinguished people from other cities and countries. Among them were many men and women of great scientific learning, who made me feel that I ought to have provided myself with a better equipment of knowledge relative to my own world, before taking my ambitious journey to Mars! They were exceedingly polite, but I fear they were much disappointed in many of my hazy responses to their eager questionings. I learned by this experience the great value of exact information. In a country like ours, where so much, and so many sorts, of knowledge are in the air, a person is apt, unless he is a student of some particular thing, to get little more than impressions. There was I,--an average (let me hope!) American citizen,--at the mercy of inquisitive experts in a hundred different arts and trades, concerning which, in the main, my ideas might be conservatively described as "general." You may imagine how unsatisfactory this was to people anxious to know about our progress in physics and chemistry, botany, and the great family of "ologies,"--or rather about our processes in developing the principles of these great sciences. With the astronomers and the electricians I got along all right; and I was also able to make myself interesting,--or so I fancied--in describing our social life, our educational and political institutions, and our various forms of religion. Our modes of dress were a matter of great curiosity to most of these people, and I was often asked to exhibit my terrestrial garments. It was when the crowd of outside visitors was at its thickest that the Caskians arrived, and as their stay was brief, covering only two days, you may suppose that we did not advance far on the road to mutual acquaintance. But to tell the truth, there was not a moment's strangeness between us after we had once clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes. It might have been partly due to my own preparedness to meet them with confidence and trust; but more, I think, to their singular freedom from the conventional barriers with which we hedge round our selfness. Their souls spoke to mine, and mine answered back, and the compact of friendship was sealed in a glance.