Quitting this hall, my guide led me through a gallery richly painted in compartments, with a barbaric mixture of gold in the colours, like pictures by Louis Cranach.The subjects described on these walls appeared to my glance as intended to illustrate events in the history of the race amidst which I was admitted.In all there were figures, most of them like the manlike creatures I had seen, but not all in the same fashion of garb, nor all with wings.There were also the effigies of 19various animals and birds, wholly strange to me, with backgrounds depicting landscapes or buildings.So far as my imperfect knowledge of the pictorial art would allow me to form an opinion, these paintings seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring, showing a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our artists- wanting, as it were, a centre; so that the effect was vague, scattered, confused, bewildering- they were like heterogeneous fragments of a dream of art.
We now came into a room of moderate size, in which was assembled what I afterwards knew to be the family of my guide, seated at a table spread as for repast.The forms thus grouped were those of my guide's wife, his daughter, and two sons.Irecognised at once the difference between the two sexes, though the two females were of taller stature and ampler proportions than the males; and their countenances, if still more symmetrical in outline and contour, were devoid of the softness and timidity of expression which give charm to the face of woman as seen on the earth above.The wife wore no wings, the daughter wore wings longer than those of the males.
My guide uttered a few words, on which all the persons seated rose, and with that peculiar mildness of look and manner which I have before noticed, and which is, in truth, the common attribute of this formidable race, they saluted me according to their fashion, which consists in laying the right hand very gently on the head and uttering a soft sibilant monosyllable-S.Si, equivalent to "Welcome."
The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, and heaped a golden platter before me from one of the dishes.
While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more at the delicacy than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance of any direct reference to myself, or any 20obtrusive scrutiny of my appearance.Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the human race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal phenomenon.But all rudeness is unknown to this people, and the youngest child is taught to despise any vehement emotional demonstration.when the meal was ended, my guide again took me by the hand, and, re-entering the gallery, touched a metallic plate inscribed with strange figures, and which I rightly conjectured to be of the nature of our telegraphs.A platform descended, but this time we mounted to a much greater height than in the former building, and found ourselves in a room of moderate dimensions, and which in its general character had much that might be familiar to the associations of a visitor from the upper world.
There were shelves on the wall containing what appeared to be books, and indeed were so; mostly very small, like our diamond duodecimos, shaped in the fashion of our volumes, and bound in sheets of fine metal.There were several curious-looking pieces of mechanism scattered about, apparently models, such as might be seen in the study of any professional mechanician.
