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Drug to Protect Against Bird Flu

(MUSIC) VOICE ONE: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.а IТm Barbara Klein. VOICE TWO: And IТm Bob Doughty.а In our program this week, we will talk about the successful effort to produce an exact copy of a dog.а Also, scientists say the worldТs oceans have fewer kinds of fish than they did fifty years ago.а We will tell you about the findings.а VOICE ONE: But first, we will report on human tests of a new protective medicine, or vaccine. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: American government scientists say they have successfully tested a vaccine that protects people against avian influenza, or bird flu.а The scientists say they believe the vaccine can protect against the bird flu virus that is spreading in Asia and Russia.а This virus is known as h-five-n-one.аа Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health announced the test results.а He is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.а Doctor Fauci said the new vaccine could be used in an emergency.а But he noted that additional tests and government approval are needed before the vaccine could be offered to the public.а He also said one important issue is if the medical industry can make enough vaccine to meet the possible demand. VOICE TWO: The new vaccine is meant to protect people against infection, not to treat those who are sick.а The vaccine cannot cause bird flu because it is made from killed viruses. Doctor Fauci said the first tests showed the medicine produced strong protection among the small group of healthy adults who received it.а He said more tests would be done on other people, older adults, and children during the next several months.а Doctor Fauci said he believed the planned tests would confirm the success of the first tests.а More tests would also answer remaining questions such as how much of the vaccine is needed for protection.аа VOICE ONE: American government scientists and others developed the vaccine.аа It was tested at three medical centers in the United States.а The vaccine is produced by Sanofi-Pasteur, a French company that is part of the European drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis. Health officials have been working quickly to develop a vaccine against bird flu.а They are concerned that the bird flu virus in Asia and Russia might change and combine with a human influenza virus to create a new virus.а They say this new virus could spread quickly around the world.а VOICE TWO: Millions of birds in Asia have died from the h-five-n-one virus or were killed to prevent its spread.а The virus has infected more than one hundred people.а More than fifty of them have died.а The infected people live in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. American health officials said the existence of a vaccine alone would not prevent the possible worldwide spread of the disease.а The officials said countries need to quickly organize ways to give vaccine injections when they are provided.а They said this would take cooperation, money and more scientific work. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: A new report says the worldТs oceans have fewer kinds of fish than they did fifty years ago.а The report said some kinds, or species, of fish have decreased by as much as fifty percent.а It blames too much fishing, destruction of areas where fish live and climate change for the decrease.а Two scientists from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, wrote the report.а Three other scientists took part in the study.а They are from the Leibniz Institute for Marine Science in Germany.а The publication Science reported their findings. VOICE TWO: The scientists used information from Japanese long-line fisheries going back to the nineteen fifties.а They compared the information with information gathered by scientific observers from Australia and the United States.а The study is the first worldwide mapping of species of large fish that eat other fish.а The study found the total catch for tuna and billfish has increased as much as ten times during the past fifty years.а The scientists found that tuna and billfish are disappearing in many areas.а They say the problem is especially bad in waters near northwest Australia.а In addition, other fish are accidentally caught when large fish are caught.а This has caused the number of species to fall.а VOICE ONE: The report said changes in temperature can also affect the number of fish species.а It found that the kinds of fish expanded when the weather conditions known as El Nino caused warmer surface waters in the Pacific Ocean.а But the number of species decreased when temperatures dropped.а The study identified five important areas in the world that have many different kinds of fish.а They include areas off the east coast of Florida and south of Hawaii in the United States.а Other areas are near AustraliaТs Great Barrier Reef, near Sri Lanka and in the southern Pacific Ocean, mainly north of Easter Island.а The scientists said it is important to protect these areas now. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: Scientists in South Korea say they have successfully produced an exact genetic copy of a dog.а The scientists said they used the same methods that produced a sheep named Dolly nine years ago.а A number of other animals have been copied, or cloned.а They include cows, pigs, rabbits, mice and even a cat. A team led by Woo-Suk Hwang of Seoul National University created an Afghan hound called Snuppy.а Snuppy is a genetic copy of an adult dog.а Last year, the team cloned human embryos and produced stem cells.а Snuppy is now more than three months old.а The announcement of his birth was reported this month in the publication Nature.а VOICE ONE: About fifteen people needed thirty months to complete the experiment.а Earlier attempts to clone a dog failed because of the difficulty of collecting dog eggs that are fully developed, or mature.а The South Korean team found a way to harvest mature dog eggs in a laboratory.а The team used a special liquid to force the egg down a tube, or oviduct, from the female reproductive organs.а Next, members of the team removed the nucleus of the egg.а Then the nucleus was replaced with the nucleus of the animal to be cloned.а Those cells were taken from the ear of the adult Afghan hound.ааа One thousand ninety five cloned embryos resulted.а The embryos were placed into one hundred twenty three female dogs.а Only three of them became pregnant.а One lost the puppy before it was born.а The team used a medical operation called a Cesarean Section to remove the two other puppies.а One became sick and died after only twenty-two days.а The surviving animal, Snuppy, was taken from a yellow Labrador retriever.а The dog raised the puppy as if she were his natural mother. VOICE TWO: Snuppy looks exactly like the dog that provided his genetic material.а Professor Hwang says it is too early to know if the puppy will have a personality like the older dog.а He said the experiment should help demonstrate how genes and environment affect creation of different kinds of dogs.а Professor Hwang also said the study is a step toward creating dogs that could be given human sicknesses and then studied.а He said his teamТs experiment is not meant to produce dogs for owners whose animals have died.а In March, the United Nations declared a ban on all kinds of cloning.а But governments in many nations have disobeyed the ban.ааа (MUSIC) VOICE ONE:аа Finally, we told you about a giant panda born last month at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.а Today we have more news of that baby panda.а ItТs a boy!а Animal experts who have examined him said he is in good health and getting bigger. We also have panda news from the San Diego Zoo in the American state of California.а A giant panda was born there on August second.а Its mother, Bai Yun, had her baby after three hours of labor.а VOICE TWO: The arrival of the baby brought the giant panda population in the San Diego Zoo to four.а The zoo has more of these animals than any other area except their native China. The sex of the panda born in San Diego was not immediately known.а Animal experts who gathered to watch television pictures of the birth said they could not see the baby.а But they could hear it make loud noises.а The baby is reported to have made happy sounds when its mother began to feed it. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Shelley Gollust and Jerilyn Watson.а Our producer was Cynthia Kirk.а IТm Barbara Klein. VOICE: And IТm Bob Doughty.а Join us again next week at this time for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

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A New Chief

A New Chief for the Securities and Exchange Commission IТm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Economics Report. The Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington was created in nineteen thirty-four to protect investors.а The S.E.C. enforces laws and rules that govern financial markets.а Last week, its chairman, William Donaldson, announced that he will resign at the end of June. President Bush quickly named a replacement for approval by the Senate.а He nominated California Representative Christopher Cox.а The president calls him "a champion of the free-enterprise system."а He also says Mister Cox "knows that a free economy is built on trust."а Mister Cox has strong support from business groups.а He supported legislation, for example, to make it more difficult for investors to bring legal actions against companies.а Mister Cox was first elected to Congress in nineteen eighty-eight.а William Donaldson is a former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.а He became chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in February of two thousand three.а At that time, public trust in the markets had been weakened.а Big companies like the energy trader Enron had cheated investors.а The commission had to develop rules to meet new requirements from Congress.а Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of two thousand two.а The law added responsibilities for top officials of companies that sell stock publicly.а Now, chief executives and chief financial officers must confirm financial results.а Companies must have controls to protect against mistakes and wrongdoing.а Another rule requires investors to receive the best stock price possible.а The agency has also increased rules on mutual funds and hedge funds.а Mutual funds make many different investments.а Mutual funds often pay other companies to supervise their investments.а The agency acted to require that most top officials of such funds be independent of the management company.а Hedge funds are similar to mutual funds, but are designed for big investors.а Advisers to large hedge funds will now have to be known to the S.E.C. The five-member commission has two Democrats and three Republicans, including Mister Donaldson.а Critics of the chairman said his actions were often too restrictive on business.а Yet Mister Donaldson says the last two and one-half years may well be remembered as the most productive period in the agency's history. This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter.а Our reports are on the Web at voaspecialenglish.com.а I'm Gwen Outen.

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A Princess of Mars

A Princess of Mars, Part One ANNOUNCER:аNow, the Special English program, American Stories. (MUSIC) Today, we begin a new series from a book by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs.а The book is called УA Princess of Mars.Фа It is the first book in a series that Mister Burroughs wrote about a man who travels to Mars during the last years of the eighteen hundreds.аThere, the man meets strange beings and sees strange sights.аAt first he is a captive, then a warrior, and after many battles, a prince of a royal family.а Shep OТNeal begins the story of УA Princess of Mars.Ф (MUSIC) JOHN CARTER:а I am a very old man. How old I do not know. It is possible I am a hundred, maybe more.а I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men do.а So far as I can remember, I have always been a man of about thirty.а I appear today as I did forty years ago.а Yet, I feel that I cannot go on living forever.а Someday I will die the real death from which there is no escape.а I do not know why I should fear death. I who have died two times and am still alive. I have never told this story.аI know the human mind will not believe what it cannot understand.а I cannot explain what happened to me. I can only tell of the ten years my dead body lay undiscovered in an Arizona cave. (SOUND) My name is John Carter.а I am from the state of Virginia.а At the close of the Civil War I found myself without a home, without money and without work.а I decided the best plan was to search for gold in the great deserts of the American Southwest. I spent almost a year searching for gold with another former soldier, Captain James Powell, also of Virginia.а We were extremely lucky.а In the winter of eighteen sixty-five we found rocks that held gold. Powell was trained as a mining engineer.а He said we had uncovered over a million dollars worth of gold in only three months.а But the work was slow with only two men and not much equipment.а So we decided Powell should go to the nearest settlement to seek equipment and men to help us with the work.а On March third, eighteen sixty-six, Powell said good-bye.а He rode his horse down the mountain toward the valley. I followed his progress for several hours. The morning Powell left was like all mornings in the deserts of the great Southwest -- clear and beautiful.а Not much later I looked across the valley.а I was surprised to see three riders in the same place where I had last seen my friend.а After watching for some time, I decided the three riders must be hostile Indians.а Powell, I knew, was well armed and an experienced soldier.а But I knew he would need my aid.а I found my weapons, placed a saddle on my horse and started as fast as possible down the trail taken by Powell. I followed as quickly as I could until dark.а About nine oТclock the moon became very bright.а I had no difficulty following PowellТs trail.а I soon found the trail left by the three riders following Powell.а I knew they were Indians.а I was sure they wanted to capture Powell. (SOUND) Suddenly I heard shots far ahead of me.а I hurried ahead as fast as I could.а Soon I came to a small camp.а Several hundred Apache Indians were in the center of the camp.а I could see Powell on the ground.а I did not even think about what to do, I just acted.а I pulled out my guns and began shooting. (SOUND) The Apaches were surprised and fled.а I forced my horse into the camp and toward Powell. I reached down and pulled him up on the horse by his belt.а I urged the horse to greater speed.а The Apaches by now realized that I was alone and quickly began to follow.а We were soon in very rough country. The trail I chose began to rise sharply.а It went up and up.а I followed the trail for several hundred meters more until I came to the mouth of a large cave. It was almost morning now.а I got off my horse and laid Powell on the ground.а I tried to give him water.а But it was no use.а Powell was dead.а I laid his body down and continued to the cave. I began to explore the cave.а I was looking for a safe place to defend myself, or perhaps for a way out.а But I became very sleepy.а It was a pleasant feeling.а My body became extremely heavy.а I had trouble moving.а Soon I had to lay down against the side of the cave.а For some reason I could not move my arms or legs. I lay facing the opening of the cave.а I could see part of the trail that had led me here.а And now I could see the Apaches.а They had found me.а But I could do nothing. Within a minute one of them came into the cave.а He looked at me, but he came no closer.а His eyes grew wide.а His mouth opened.а He had a look of terror on his face.а He looked behind me for moment and then fled. Suddenly I heard a low noise behind me. (SOUND) So could the rest of the Apaches.а They all turned and fled.а The sound became louder.а But still I could not move.а I could not turn my head to see what was behind me.а All day I lay like this.а I tried again to rise, and again, but still I could not move.а Then I heard a sharp sound.а It was like a steel wire breaking.а I quickly stood up.а My back was against the cave wall. I looked down.а There before me lay my body.а (MUSIC) For a few moments, I stood looking at my body.а I could not bring myself to touch it.а I was very frightened.а The sounds of the cave and the sight of my body forced me away.а I slowly backed to the opening of the cave. I turned to look at the Arizona night.а I could see a thousand stars.а As I stood there I turned my eyes to a large red star.а I could not stop looking at it.а It was MarsЕthe red planetЕthe red god of war.а It seemed to pull me near. Then, for a moment, I closed my eyes.а There was an instant of extreme cold and total darkness.а Suddenly I was in deep, dreamless, peaceful sleep. (MUSIC) I opened my eyes upon a very strange land.а I immediately knew then I was on Mars.а Not once did I question this fact.а My mind told me I was on Mars as your mind tells you that you are upon Earth.а You do not question the fact, nor did I. I found myself lying on a bed of yellow colored grass that covered the land for kilometers.а The time was near the middle of the day and the sun was shining full upon me.а It was warm. I decided to do a little exploring.аа Springing to my feet, I received my first Martian surprise.а The effort to stand carried me into the Martian air to the height of about one meter.а I landed softly upon the ground, however, without incident.а I found that I must learn to walk all over again.а My muscles were used to the gravity of Earth.а Mars has less gravity.а My attempts to walk resulted in jumps and hops, which took me into the air.а I once landed on my face.а I soon learned that it took much less effort for me to move on Mars than it did on Earth. Near me was a small, low wall.а Carefully, I made my way to the wall and looked over.а It was filled with eggs, some already broken open.а Small, green creatures were in them.а They looked at me with huge red eyes. As I watched the fierce-looking creatures, I failed to hear twenty full-grown Martians coming from behind me.а They had come without warning.а As I turned, I saw them.а One was coming at me with a huge spear, with its sharp tip pointed at my heart! (SOUND AND MUSIC) ANNOUNCER: This is Bob Doughty.а You have been listening to American Stories and our version of УA Princess of Mars.Фа The voice of John Carter was Shep OТNeal.а Our program was written for radio, produced and directed by Paul Thompson. Join us again next week for the next part of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story, УA Princess of Mars,Фа on the Special English program, American Stories, on the Voice of America.

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A Visit to Two National Parks

A Visit to Two National Parks: Mount Rainier in Washington State and Valley Forge in Pennsylvania а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: IТm Steve Ember. VOICE TWO: а And IТm Faith Lapidus with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.а Today we tell about two areas that are popular with visitors to the United States.а One is a place of fierce beauty.а It is Mount Rainier National Park in the northwestern state of Washington. The other is one of the most important places in the history of the American Revolution.а It is Valley Forge National Historical Park, in the eastern state of Pennsylvania.а а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: The American Indians who lived in the northwest called the great mountain УTakhoma.Фа One tribe said it was a female monster that would eat people.а Other old stories among the Indians said the mountain could produce huge amounts of fire. In seventeen ninety-two, British explorer George Vancouver became the first European to see the huge mountain.а He named it after a navy friend, Captain Peter Rainier. Today the people who live in the northwestern city of Seattle call it УThe Mountain.Фа Mount Rainier is almost one hundred kilometers from Seattle.а Yet it can be seen from almost any place in the city.а The beautiful, snow covered mountain seems to offer the city its protection. VOICE TWO: The mountainТs offer of protection is false.а Mount Rainier is not just a mountain.а It is a sleeping volcano. Steam and heat often rise from the very top of the huge mountain, causing snow to melt.а Mount Rainier is four thousand three hundred ninety-two meters tall.а Its top is covered in snow all year.а More than twenty-five thick rivers of ice called glaciers cover a lot of the mountain.а In some areas, these glaciers are more than one hundred meters thick. VOICE ONE: Mount Rainier always has been a popular place to visit.а Many people go to enjoy the beautiful forests that surround the mountain.а Others go to climb the mountain. Hazard Stevens and Philemon VanTrump became the first people known to reach the top of Mount Rainier.а They reached the top in August of eighteen seventy after a ten-hour climb through the snow. In eighteen ninety, a young schoolteacher became the first woman to reach the top.а Her name was Fay Fuller.а For many years after her successful climb, she wrote newspaper stories asking the federal government to make Mount Rainier a national park.а Many people who visited the mountain also wanted it to be protected forever by the government. On March Second, eighteen ninety-nine, President William McKinley signed a law that made Mount Rainier a national park.а It was the fifth national park established in the United States.а VOICE TWO: Today, National Park Service experts say about ten thousand people climb the huge mountain each year.а But only about half of the climbers reach the top.а The mountain can be extremely difficult to climb.а Severe weather is possible at almost any time.а Snow and ice cover parts of the mountain all year.More than fifty people have died trying to climb Mount Rainier.а Mountain climbing experts often use it as a difficult test for people who want to climb some of the worldТs highest mountains.а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: You do not have to climb the huge mountain to enjoy Mount Rainier National Park.а More than one million people visit the park each year.а Many walk on the hundreds of kilometers of paths.а The paths lead through flat meadows filled with wild flowers and up through forests of large old trees.а Other visitors drive around the park to experience its natural beauty.а They often see black tailed deer, elk, and mountain goats. The park is large.а It is almost one hundred thousand hectares.а Many lakes, rivers, roads, two hotels and six camping areas are inside the borders of the park. VOICE TWO: Experts agree that Mount Rainier will become a very active volcano at sometime in the future.а They say the real problem is that they do not know when.а They also agree that the great heat produced by an explosion of the volcano would melt the ice rivers that are part of the mountain.а This could happen in only a few minutes.а They say the melting ice would produce flowing rivers of mud and rock.а People who live in the southern part of Seattle and in the city of Tacoma, Washington would be in danger.а Experts carefully study the great mountain.а They hope to be able to warn of any dangerous change.а But for now, the great mountain provides a safe and beautiful place to visit in the Northwest area of the United States.а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: A very different kind of national park is in the eastern state of Pennsylvania.а It is called Valley Forge National Historical Park.а It is near the city of Philadelphia. Valley Forge also is a beautiful place.а Within the park are many different kinds of trees and flowers. Huge areas of green grass.а And a beautiful, slow moving river.а You can see many deer.а Often you can come very near them.а Deer do not run away because they are used to seeing people in the park.а It is not the natural beauty that made Valley Forge a National Historic Park.а It is what happened there.а Many other places were important in the American War for Independence, but no other place is so filled with suffering.а No battle was fought at Valley Forge.а Yet, more than two thousand soldiers of the small American army died there.а They died of hunger, disease and the fierce cold in the winters of seventeen seventy-seven and seventeen seventy-eight. It was also at Valley Forge that the men of this small army learned to be real soldiers. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: What happened at Valley Forge began in August of seventeen seventy-seven.а A British force threatened to capture the American capital at Philadelphia.а The American commander, General George Washington, moved the army to defend the city.а A battle was fought at a place called Brandywine and another at Germantown.а The British forces won those battles and occupied Philadelphia.а By the month of December, General Washington needed to find a place his small army could easily defend.а He chose Valley Forge.а More than fifteen centimeters of snow fell only a few days after the army arrived.а Ice covered the rivers. The soldiers began building very small wooden houses called log cabins.а They built more than one thousand of these small houses.а VOICE ONE: The fierce winter was only one of the many problems the American army faced.а Many of the soldiers had no shoes.а Most had no winter clothing.а All suffered from a severe lack of food. Then, several diseases struck.а Typhus, typhoid, dysentery and pneumonia were among the diseases that spread through the army.а Most of the soldiers became sick.а Many died.а General Washington wrote letters to Congress asking for help.а He asked for money to buy food and clothing.а But Congress had no money to give him. Several things happened to change the small army during that long and terrible winter.а General Washington knew the army had been defeated in the past because of a lack of real training.а A man named Baron Friedrich von Steuben had recently come from Europe.а He was an expert at training soldiers.а So, each day during the terrible winter, Baron von Steuben taught the men of the American army to be soldiers.а He also taught them something very important.а He taught them to believe in themselves. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: As the winter passed, the army slowly changed.а New troops arrived.а New equipment arrived.а An alliance with France brought guarantees of military support.а The men who survived that terrible winter were no longer a group of armed citizens.а They were well-trained soldiers who no longer feared the enemy. When the American army left Valley Forge on June nineteenth, seventeen seventy-eight, the soldiers took with them the spirit that had helped them to survive. The War for Independence would continue for another five years.а Terrible battles were yet to be fought.а However, the men who had survived the winter in Valley Forge knew they could win.а They did. VOICE ONE: Today, you can visit the area where Baron von Steuben trained the soldiers of the American Revolution.а You can watch a movie about the American soldiersТ struggle to survive that long ago winter.а You can see examples of the small log cabins the soldiers built.а You can walk on paths along the remains of the defense system and the officersТ headquarters.а And you can feel the spirit of Valley Forge. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by Mario Ritter. IТm Faith Lapidus. VOICE ONE: And IТm Steve Ember.а Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. (MUSIC)

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A_New_Push

A New Push for Breastfeeding in Developing Countries This is the VOA Special English Health Report. We talked last week about a series of new studies of hunger in mothers and children in developing countries. The Lancet medical journal published the series. In it, researchers said poor nutrition in the first two years can permanently damage a child, physically and mentally. One of the interventions they placed great importance on was breastfeeding. The World Health Organization says babies should receive only breast milk for the first six months. On its Web site, the W.H.O. says breast milk is the ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants. And it notes that as part of the reproductive process, breastfeeding also has important health considerations for mothers. Studies have shown that women who receive counseling about breastfeeding are more likely to feed their babies only breast milk for the first six months. The La Leche League is an international organization that promotes breastfeeding. Jack Newman is a Canadian doctor who serves as a health adviser to the group. He has written and spoken widely on what he says are several mistaken beliefs that stop women from breastfeeding. Many women think they will not produce enough milk to feed their baby. Doctor Newman says the large majority of women in fact produce more than enough milk to feed their babies. Some women worry that breastfeeding will hurt. Again, Doctor Newman says this is not true. He says breasts can hurt a little in the first few days of nursing. But he says any pain beyond that would most likely be the result of incorrect breastfeeding or an infection. Jack Newman says it is not uncommon for people to believe that baby formula is just as good as breast milk. But he says only a mother's body can produce the right levels of all the nutrition that a baby needs as these needs change. He also points out that unlike formula, breast milk contains infection-fighting antibodies -- and it's free. Medical experts agree that, in general, breast milk is the best possible food for a new baby. But one problem with breastfeeding is that many new mothers are not sure how to do it correctly. We will talk about that next week. And thatТs the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. Transcripts and MP3s of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Pat Bodnar.

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Education Report

It's College Graduation Season in the United States IТm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report. We started our Foreign Student Series on American higher education in September, at the start of the new school year.а Now that year is ending, and so is our series.а But not yet.а We still have a few more subjects.а For example, listener Zegeye Mulu in Ethiopia asks about graduation ceremonies. May and June are the months when most American colleges and universities hold their commencements.а These ceremonies are a time for family and friends to gather and celebrate a studentТs completion of an academic degree. Most ceremonies are traditional.а The students wear caps and gowns over their clothing.а One by one, their names are called.а They go to the front, shake hands with school officials and receive a document of some kind.а But first they must they sit and listen to speeches.а Colleges and universities often invite famous guests or former students who have become successful.а Schools often want speakers to comment on world events.а This Saturday, for example, President Bush is to speak at the graduation ceremony at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.а Another speaker that day, at another school, is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.а She will speak at the commencement at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.а а News people are often invited to speak at graduations.а So are entertainers.а Actor John Lithgow, a nineteen sixty-seven graduate of Harvard, will speak at the university on June ninth. Then there are speakers like Jon Stewart.а He entertains by making fun of the news.а HisHehEHis popular program, "The Daily Show," appears on Comedy Central on cable television.а Last year, Jon Stewart spoke at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.а He graduated from there in nineteen eighty-four. аHe did offer some serious advice.а He said: "College is something you complete.а Life is something you experience.а So donТt worry about your grade, or the results or success.а Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it ... Love what you do. аGet good at it."а Well, that is not all Jon Stewart said.а You can find his full speech on the William and Mary Web site: w-w-w dot w-m dot e-d-u (www.wm.edu).а And our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish dot com.а This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach.а IТm Gwen Outen.

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Feathertop

ANNOUNCER: Now, the V.O.A. Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES. (MUSIC) ANNOUNCER: Our story today is called УFeathertop.Ф It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here is Shep OТNeal with the story. (MUSIC) STORYTELLER: The long cold winter was gone at last.а At first the cold nights went away slowly. Then suddenly, the warm days of spring started to come. There was new life again in the earth. Things started to grow and come up. For the first time, green corn plants began to show. They pushed through the soil and could now be seen above the ground. After the long winter months, the crows, the big black birds, were hungry. And when they saw the little green plants, they flew down to eat them. Old Mother Rigby tried to make the noisy and hungry birds go away. They made her very angry. She did not want the black birds to eat her corn. But the birds would not go away. So, early one morning, just as the sun started to rise, Mother Rigby jumped out of bed. She had a plan to stop those black birds from eating her corn. Mother Rigby could do anything. She was a witch, a woman with strange powers. She could make water run uphill, or change a beautiful woman into a white horse. Many nights when the moon was full and bright, she could be seen flying over the tops of the houses in the village, sitting on a long wooden stick. It was a broomstick, and it helped her to do all sorts of strange tricks. (MUSIC) Mother Rigby ate a quick breakfast and then started to work on her broomstick. She was planning to make something that would look like a man. It would fill the birds with fear, and scare them from eating her corn, the way most farmers protect themselves from those black, pesky birds. Mother Rigby worked quickly. She held her magic broomstick straight, and then tied another piece of wood across it. And already, it began to look like a man with arms. Then she made the head. She put a pumpkin, a vegetable the size of a football, on top of the broomstick. She made two small holes in the pumpkin for eyes, and made another cut lower down that looked just like a mouth. At last, there he was. He seemed ready to go to work for Mother Rigby and stop those old birds from eating her corn. But, Mother Rigby was not happy with what she made. She wanted to make her scarecrow look better and better, for she was a good worker. She made a purple coat and put it around her scarecrow, and dressed it in white silk stockings. She covered him with false hair and an old hat.а And in that hat, she stuck the feather of a bird. She examined him closely, and decided she liked him much better now, dressed up in a beautiful coat, with a fine feather on top of his hat. And, she named him Feathertop. She looked at Feathertop and laughed with happiness. He is a beauty, she thought. УNow what?Ф she thought, feeling troubled again.а She felt that Feathertop looked too good to be a scarecrow. УHe can do something better,Ф she thought, Уthan just stand near the corn all summer and scare the crows.Ф And she decided on another plan for Feathertop. She took the pipe of tobacco she was smoking and put it into the mouth of Feathertop. УPuff, darling, puff,Ф she said to Feathertop. УPuff away, my fine fellow.Ф It is your life.Ф Smoke started to rise from FeathertopТs mouth. At first, it was just a little smoke, but Feathertop worked hard, blowing and puffing. And, more and more smoke came out of him. УPuff away, my pet,Ф Mother Rigby said, with happiness. УPuff away, my pretty one. Puff for your life, I tell you.Ф Mother Rigby then ordered Feathertop to walk. УGo forward,Ф she said. УYou have a world before you.Ф Feathertop put one hand out in front of him, trying to find something for support. At the same time he pushed one foot forward with great difficulty. But Mother Rigby shouted and ordered him on, and soon he began to go forward. Then she said, Уyou look like a man, and you walk like a man. Now I order you to talk like a man.Ф Feathertop gasped, struggled, and at last said in a small whisper, УMother, I want to speak, but I have no brain. What can I say?Ф УAh, you can speak,Ф Mother Rigby answered. УWhat shall you say? Have no fear. When you go out into the world, you will say a thousand things, and say them a thousand timesЕand saying them a thousand times again and again, you still will be saying nothing. So just talk, babble like a bird. Certainly you have enough of a brain for that.Ф (MUSIC) Mother Rigby gave Feathertop much money and said УNow you are as good as any of them and can hold your head high with importance.Ф But she told Feathertop that he must never lose his pipe and must never let it stop smoking. She warned him that if his pipe ever stopped smoking, he would fall down and become just a bundle of sticks again. УHave no fear, Mother,Ф Feathertop said in a big voice and blew a big cloud of smoke out of his mouth. УOn your way,Ф Mother Rigby said, pushing Feathertop out the door. УThe world is yours. And if anybody asks you for your name, just say Feathertop. For you have a feather in your hat and a handful of feathers in your empty head.Ф Feathertop found the streets in town, and many people started to look at him. They looked at his beautiful purple coat and his white silk stockings, and at the pipe he carried in his left hand, which he put back into his mouth every five steps he walked. They thought he was a visitor of great importance. УWhat a fine, noble faceФ one man said. УHe surely is somebody,Ф said another. УA great leader of men.Ф (MUSIC) As Feathertop walked along one of the quieter streets near the edge of town, he saw a very pretty girl standing in front of a small red brick house. A little boy was standing next to her. The pretty girl smiled at Feathertop, and love entered her heart. It made her whole face bright with sunlight. Feathertop looked at her and had a feeling he never knew before. Suddenly, everything seemed a little different to him. The air was filled with a strange excitement. The sunlight glowed along the road, and people seemed to dance as they moved through the streets. Feathertop could not stop himself, and walked toward the pretty smiling young girl. As he got closer, the little boy at her side pointed his finger at Feathertop and said, УLook, Polly! The man has no face. It is a pumpkin.Ф Feathertop moved no closer, but turned around and hurried through the streets of the town toward his home. When Mother Rigby opened the door, she saw Feathertop shaking with emotion.а He was puffing on his pipe with great difficulty and making sounds like the clatter of sticks, or the rattling of bones. УWhatТs wrong?Ф Mother Rigby asked. УI am nothing, Mother. I am not a man. I am just a puff of smoke. I want to be something more than just a puff of smoke.Ф And Feathertop took his pipe, and with all his strength smashed it against the floor. He fell down and became a bundle of sticks as his pumpkin face rolled toward the wall. УPoor Feathertop,Ф Mother Rigby said, looking at the heap on the floor. УHe was too good to be a scarecrow. And he was too good to be a man. But he will be happier, standing near the corn all summer and protecting it from the birds. So I will make him a scarecrow again.Ф (MUSIC) ANNOUNCER: You have heard the American story, УFeathertop.Ф It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Your storyteller was Shep OТNeal. The producer was Lawan Davis. Listen again next week at this time for another American story in V.O.A. Special English. IТm Steve Ember.

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Fighting_Witchweed

Fighting Witchweed in African Sorghum This is the VOA Special English Development Report. Farmers in Africa call the striga plant by the name witchweed. It grows a pleasant looking purple flower. But it attacks many crops in the grass family. Witchweed is among the few flowering weeds that act as parasites on other plants. Every year it causes six to seven billion dollars in damage to African grain sorghum. Sorghum is important to the local food supply. The witchweed steals water and nutrients from the roots and attacks the sorghum with a poisonous substance. Now, scientists say they have produced seeds that can protect sorghum crops from witchweed. Kassim Al-Katib is a weed expert at Kansas State University in the United States. Mitch Tuinstra is a genetics and plant-breeding expert formerly at Kansas State but now at Purdue University in Indiana. To deal with witchweed, they developed special sorghum-seed genes. These genes can accept carefully chosen chemical herbicides without being harmed. The researchers placed the herbicides on the sorghum seeds. Kassim al-Katib said the seeds kill the witchweed as the sorghum grows. Mitch Tuinstra directed greenhouse tests of the seeds in the Netherlands in two thousand five and two thousand six. Similar studies took place in field trials in Mali and Niger. These studies showed the treatment to be highly successful. Mitch Tuinstra recently returned from Africa, where he met with agriculture experts. They are working to develop local kinds of sorghum that employ the genes. The project is a collective research program under the United States Agency for International Development. Witchweed has another unusual quality. It requires chemical signals from sorghum seeds to grow. If no sorghum seeds are present, the witchweed seeds can lie under the soil for years. The seeds begin to grow only when they receive the needed chemical signals. Witchweed seed capsules can hold four hundred to five hundred seeds. Winds and rain spread the parasite. The plant can reduce a farmer's crop. Or it can completely destroy many hectares of grain. Witchweed is very difficult to remove after it invades an area. Damage from the parasite is worst in dry soil with low fertility. It often strikes farmers who work the poorest land. This can mean disaster for people who already do not have enough to eat. And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.

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First_step_in_practicing

First Step in Practicing Medicine: Getting Into Medical School VOICE ONE: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.а VOICE TWO: And I'm Barbara Klein.а On our program this week, we look at how people become medical doctors in the United States.а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: It is not easy to become a doctor in the United States.а The first step is getting into a medical college.а More than one hundred twenty American schools offer study programs for people seeking to become a doctor.а People can get advice about medical schools from many resources.а One of these is the Princeton Review. The publication provides information about colleges, study programs and jobs. The Princeton Review says competition to enter medical schools is strong.а It says about thirty-five thousand people compete for sixteen thousand openings in American medical schools each year.а Many of those seeking to be admitted are women.а VOICE TWO: Most people seeking admission contact more than one medical school.а Some applicants contact many.а An important part of the application usually is the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT.а The Association of American Medical Colleges provides the test by computer.а It is offered in the United States and in other countries around the world. The applicant is rated on reasoning, physical and biological sciences and an example of writing.а Applicants for medical school need to do well on the MCAT.а They also need a good record in their college studies. VOICE ONE: People who want to become doctors often study large amounts of biology, chemistry or other science.а Some students work for a year or two in a medical or research job before they attempt to enter medical school. A direct meeting, or interview, also is usually required for entrance to medical schools.а This means talking with a school representative.а The interviewer wants to know what the applicant is like.а Does the person understand the demands of life as a medical student and doctor in training?а What are the personТs goals for a life in medicine?а VOICE TWO: A medical education can be very costly.а One year at a private medical college can cost forty thousand dollars or more.а The average at a public medical school is more than fifteen thousand dollars.а Most students need loans to pay for medical school.а Many finish their education heavily in debt.а ааааа Some Americans become doctors by joining the United States Army, Navy, Air Force or Public Health Service.а They attend the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.а These students attend without having to pay.а They also receive training beyond the usual education in areas needed by military and public health doctors.а In return, they spend seven years in government service.а VOICE ONE: Doctors are among the highest paid people in the United States.а Big-city doctors who work in specialties like eye care or surgical operations usually earn the most money.а But some other doctors earn far less.а That is especially true in poor communities.а Doctors in areas far from cities may sometimes get part of their payment in fruits or vegetables. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO:аааааа Medical students spend their first two years mainly in classroom study.а They learn about the body and all its systems.а They also begin studying how to recognize and treat disease. By the third year, students begin working with patients in hospitals.а Experienced doctors who have treated many patients guide them as they work.а As the students learn, they think about the kind of medical skills they will need to work as doctors. VOICE ONE: During the fourth year, students begin contacting hospital programs for the additional training they will need after medical school.а Competition to work at a top hospital can be fierce. Doctors-in-training in hospitals are called interns or residents.а They are usually called interns during their first year.а After that, the name of the job is resident.а The trainees treat patients guided by medical professors and other experts. VOICE TWO: All fifty states require at least one year of hospital work for doctors-in-training educated at medical schools in the United States.а Graduates of study programs at most foreign medical schools may have to complete two or three years of residency, although there are exceptions.аа To be accepted for a residency, a person must meet the requirements of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates.а This process involves several tests before a person can receive a visa to stay in the United States for the training period. Those completing study programs at foreign medical schools may be required to return to their own country for at least two years after their training ends.а But because of doctor shortages or other needs, some have been able to get visas without the required two-year stay in their home country. VOICE ONE: Doctors-in-training receive experience in different kinds of care.а Interns, for example, may work with children for one month.а Then the next month they may be in the operating room.а How long a residency lasts depends on the chosen area of medicine. There are many medical specialties.а Some people become cardiologists and care for the heart.а Others become oncologists and treat cancer patients.а Still others become pediatricians and take care of children.а And some doctors go into medical research, either at a university or with a private company.а VOICE TWO: But whatever they choose, they first need experience.а Some doctors work a long time in hospitals before they are fully trained in a specialty.а Neurosurgeons are a good example.а They operate on the brain, neck and back.а Some spend six years or more as residents before beginning private practice. A doctor in Chicago, Illinois, remembers that before his internship, he wanted to work in crisis medicine.а But he lost that interest after he interned in a hospital emergency room.а He saw many patients who needed help immediately, like accident victims and victims of gunshot wounds.а The specialty he chose, surgery, lets him have more time to decide how to help his patients.а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: In nineteen ninety-nine, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released a report on medical mistakes in American hospitals.а The report said preventable mistakes resulted in at least forty-four thousand deaths each year. Five years later, the New England Journal of Medicine published two government-financed studies of serious mistakes made by interns.а The studies found that the mistake rate in two intensive-care areas decreased when interns worked fewer hours.а The interns made fewer mistakes when they had to order medicines and identify conditions.аааааа Teaching hospitals say they must pay more for work from other employees because resident hours are shortened.а Some residents say they need extended time with patients to observe changes in their condition.а And some experienced doctors say residents need to work as much as they can to become good doctors. VOICE TWO: But in two thousand three, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education reduced the hours that residents may work.а The council supervises the training of residents.а Some residents were spending one hundred or more hours a week at their hospitals.а They were often on duty more than thirty-six hours at a time, with limited sleep.а The changed rules limit residents to thirty hours of duty at a time.а A hospital is not supposed to require more than eighty hours of duty in a week.а In addition, interns and residents must have one day off in every seven.а But some residents say all hospitals are not following the new rules. VOICE ONE: Paul Rockey is a medical education expert in Illinois.а He has worked for years with residents.а He says residencies today are more difficult than before.а Patients do not stay as long in the hospital as they once did.а So Doctor Rockey says there is a lot of pressure on young doctors to learn quickly. He says the difficulties of a medical education may be great.а But, he adds that people also get great satisfaction seeing themselves gain the knowledge and skills to become good doctors.а (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Brianna Blake.а IТm Barbara Klein. VOICE ONE: And IТm Steve Ember.а Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com.а Listen again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

Listen carefully

For Linda Blair

For Linda Blair, Life After 'The Exorcist' Includes Animal Rights Activism HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English. (MUSIC) I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week: We listen to music from Mary Weiss Е Answer a question about American actress Linda Blair Е And report about the recent Special English listener contest. Listener Contest HOST: The results of the Special English listener study are in.а Many of you might have answered our announcement back in May.а If you did, thank you for taking a few minutes to communicate with us. The information you provided will help Special English better understand who is listening to us, and how. Barbara Klein has more. BARBARA KLEIN: We asked listeners to tell us when they listen to us and how: shortwave or medium wave radio frequency, by satellite or on the Internet. We received just over one thousand letters and e-mails. They came from ninety-nine countries all around the world. More than three hundred responses came from East Asia.а More than two hundred sixty came from Africa.а The largest number came from listeners in China, followed by Nigeria.а Most of our fans are listening to Special English by shortwave, followed closely by the Internet. Here are quotes from some of the e-mails we received: Orlando in Venezuela told us that he listens to Special English every night on his shortwave radio and also downloads the text of our programs from our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.аа He says he is learning to write and read and hear in English and each day is better than the day before. Mohsen from Iran wrote that he has been listening to our programs for more than ten years. He is now an English teacher and recommends our programs to his students.а He also uses materials from our Web site to teach his students about the culture, history, people and language of the United States. Joanna from Poland told us that she also uses our Web site.а УI can read the text, check the meaning of the words and I can hear the pronunciation... Thank you very much for very interesting information.Ф We wish we could read on the air all the wonderful messages we received.а We also wish we could give every person who responded a shortwave radio.а But, only one lucky person wins the radio.а That person is Nguyen Kim Vu Bao, an eighteen-year-old student from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Vu Bao wrote a letter saying he has never missed any of our programs since he first discovered our broadcasts on the radio more than a year ago. Twenty other listeners will receive smaller VOA gifts.а We want to thank everyone who took part in our study and hope you all will keep listening to Special English. Linda Blair HOST: Our VOA listener question this week comes from Brazil. Ivan Crespo wants to know what actress Linda Blair has done since she starred in the nineteen seventy-three movie УThe Exorcist.Ф In that famous movie, Linda Blair played a child who becomes possessed by the devil. The movie was very successful. The thirteen-year-old actress was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Today, most people know that the scary parts of "The Exorcist" were done with special effects. But Linda Blair says: "You would not believe how often people ask me to make my head spin around." After ФThe Exorcist,Ф she starred in other movies, playing troubled teenagers. She also starred in the sequel to the movie that made her famous, УExorcist Two, the Heretic.Фа But it was not very successful. In the nineteen eighties she was in several other movies that were not very popular. She also dated the singer Rick James. Some people have said that James wrote his popular song УCold BloodedФ about their relationship. In nineteen ninety, Blair made fun of "The Exorcist" in the movie УRepossessed.Фа She also appeared on some television shows. In two thousand one, she hosted the show УThe Scariest Places on Earth.Ф Linda Blair always loved riding horses.а In the nineteen eighties she competed in horse-riding events.аа She has a long history of helping animals. In fact, as a young girl, she had wanted to become a veterinarian, a doctor who treats animals. She has received many awards from the animal rights organization PETA. The City of Los Angeles honored her for her work with abused and lost animals. She also began the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation. This organization provides animals with health care, food, training and shelter. It also helps people learn how to care for animals, so that fewer of them will be left alone or hurt in the future. Mary Weiss (MUSIC) HOST: That was "Leader of the Pack," a nineteen sixty-four hit song by the Shangri-Las. The four girls in this popular group were only about sixteen years old when they started making records in Queens, New York. Their songs expressed the ups and downs of being a teenager. Now, more than forty years later, the bandТs lead singer Mary Weiss has returned to music. Her new album is called УDangerous Game.Фа Faith Lapidus has more. (MUSIC) FAITH LAPIDUS: That was the albumТs title song, УDangerous Game.Ф Mary Weiss worked with the music band Reigning Sound to make her record. They did not want to copy the music of the Shangri-Las. Mary Weiss said that nobody wants to go back to the past. But she did want to keep the style of the past in her record. She said her favorite song on her album is УBreak it One More Time.Ф (MUSIC) Mary WeissТs deep, smoky voice has changed a lot since she was a teenager. She says she is always surprised to learn how many people still listen to her old songs. Now, people can listen to her new songs. Mary Weiss has said she learned what kinds of music young people are listening to through the social networking Web site, MySpace.а She even created her own MySpace page.а We leave you with УCry About the Radio.Ф This song criticizes the workings of the music industry. (MUSIC) HOST: I'm Doug Johnson.а I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Erin Braswell, Dana Demange and Jill Moss.а Caty Weaver was our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.а Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com.а Please include your full name and mailing address.а Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.а Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAТs radio magazine in Special English.а

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For_blind_foreign

For Blind Foreign Students, Some Aid Available in US This is the VOA Special English Education Report. A listener in Nigeria has a question about financial aid for blind and visually impaired college students in America. S.A. Ogunlowo in Ile-Ife wants to know if visually impaired foreign students can get a full scholarship as an undergraduate. Financial aid programs in the United States, especially at the undergraduate level, do often require American citizenship. At the same time, scholarships often pay only part of the cost of an education. The National Federation of the Blind advises students to contact any school they wish to attend to ask about financial aid. The federation is the country's largest group for the blind. Each year it awards scholarships that do not have any citizenship requirements. Students must be legally blind. And foreign students cannot apply until a college in the United States has already accepted them. The application deadline was March thirty-first for thirty scholarships offered for this fall. Most are three thousand dollars. The highest is twelve thousand dollars. The United States has an estimated one million blind adults. The federation says there are no special colleges or universities for the blind. But schools do offer special services and technology to help students with disabilities. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. More information about the scholarships from the National Federation of the Blind can be found at its Web site: n-f-b dot o-r-g (nfb.org). This was week number thirty-six in our series for students interested in coming to the United States for higher education. If you missed any of our reports, you can find our Foreign Student Series online at voaspecialenglish.com. And if you have a question, send it to special@voanews.com. Please include your name and country. I'm Steve Ember.

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Ford Motor Company to Cut

Ford Motor Company to Cut Jobs in North America Its North American operations employ more than one hundred twenty thousand people.а Ford plans to do this over six years.а The action will affect workers in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Georgia, and in Ontario, Canada.а The news from Ford last week was not unexpected.а General Motors announced similar cost-cutting measures in November.а G.M. and Ford have both been losing market share in North America.а As recently as nineteen ninety-eight, Ford had twenty-five percent of the United States market.а Autodata, an industry information provider, says the number has shrunk to around nineteen percent. By closing factories, Ford and G.M. expect to reduce costs.а They are also reducing their production capacity in North America.а Experts say the carmakers have been making too many vehicles for their share of the market. Credit rating companies have also been concerned about the cutting of prices through sales incentive programs.а Low prices sell more cars, but they also lower profits.а G.M., for example, sold more than nine million vehicles last year, its second highest total ever.а Yet it reported a loss of more than three thousand million dollars. Ford reported a profit of two thousand million dollars last year.а But most of the gains were from financial services.а Ford's automotive business lost about one thousand million dollars.а Most of that was from its sales in North America.а Ford reported profits in South America, Europe and Asia. Both Ford and G.M. have reported fast growth in Asia.а Ford says its sales in China grew forty-six percent last year.а Sales growth in South America has also been strong. The market in North America is changing.а Strong sales in trucks and sports utility vehicles provided big profits in recent years.а Today, with fuel prices up, many people are buying more economical cars.а AmericaТs Big Three carmakers -- G.M., Ford and DaimlerChrysler -- face competition from another big three.а Those are Toyota, Honda and Nissan of Japan.а In fact, Toyota could soon pass General Motors to become the biggest seller of automobiles in the world. This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter.а Our reports are online at voaspecialenglish.com.а I'm Steve Ember.

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Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th: So What's the Big Deal? HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English. I'm Gwen Outen.а On our show this week: 1979: Rappers delight with "Rapper's Delight." Musical memories of rap ... A question from Nigeria about presidential aircraft Е And a look at the calendar. Friday the Thirteenth Do you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia?а Do you even know what that means? Bob Doughty has the explanation. BOB DOUGHTY: It means fear of Friday the thirteenth.а The word is paraskevidekatriaphobia (pair-uh-skee-vee-dek-uh-tree-uh-FOH-bee-uh).а Fear of just the number thirteen is called triskaidekaphobia (tris-ki-de-ke-FO-be-uh).аа Modern thinkers may not believe as much in such things.а And how these fears began is unclear.а Yet popular culture still considers Friday the thirteenth an unlucky day.а Here are just a few recent newspaper stories that we found with Google, the Internet search engine:а In Massachusetts, the North Adams Transcript announced a talk to be given Friday night.а It said the speaker will discuss "the power of superstition and its roots in nature."а That is, if anyone feels safe enough to leave home.а Sorry, a little joke; the story did not say that. But in New York state, the Independent in the Hamptons did say this about military base closings by the Defense Department: "Perhaps Friday the thirteenth will be lucky for the Air National Guard One Hundred Sixth Rescue Wing. ThatТs the day officials expect to learn if the base located at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach will remain open." In Texas, the Daily News in Galveston County wrote about a sports event to raise money for medical research.а The story said: "This Friday the thirteenth promises to bring nothing but good luck to those participating in the first Serving to Ace Leukemia Tennis Tournament."а Our last example involves a graduation ceremony at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.а A report in the News and Record told about three Bosnian Muslim immigrants graduating together.а Sanela Kalender, her husband Almir and his brother Armin had fled the Bosnian war in the nineteen nineties.а They settled in North Carolina in two thousand.а In the words of the story: "The commencement ceremony falls on what's supposed to be one of the unluckiest days of the year, but which has turned out to be the luckiest for the Kalenders. They arrived in America on a Friday the thirteenth.а They will graduate on a Friday the thirteenth." Presidential Aircraft Air Force One HOST: Our question this week comes from Kwara State, Nigeria.аа Obalugemo Folorunsho wants to know why aircraft that fly the American president are called Air Force One and Marine One. Air Force One and Marine One are radio call signs.а An Air Force Web site says the call sign "Air Force One" was first used in the nineteen fifties. The name "Air Force One" is used for any Air Force plane carrying the president.а "Marine One" is used for any Marine Corps helicopter that the president is on. The Air Force has two specially designed Boeing seven-forty-sevens for presidential travel.а These huge planes can fly halfway around the world without re-fueling.а They can carry more than one hundred passengers and crew. The planes carry high-technology communications and other electronics.а There are private areas for the president and his family, as well as a conference room and office.а Separate spaces are provided for Secret Service bodyguards and the news media. There are two kitchens.а And the planes also carry medical equipment. The planes are kept near Washington at Andrews Air Force Base, home to the Presidential Airlift Group.а Marine Helicopter Squadron One also serves the president.а For years, the main helicopter used has been the Sikorsky V-H-three-D.а But the Lockheed Martin company in January won a competition to produce the next presidential helicopter.а The one chosen is called the U-S-one-oh-one. Sugarhill Gang (MUSIC) "Hate It or Love It."а That's the name of the song.а "Hate It or Love It" is from the hip-hop artist known as The Game, with Fifty Cent.а You can hear it on "The Documentary," The Game's first album, and one of the top rap albums in America right now. The other day, our producer, Caty Weaver, was listening to the radio on her drive to work.а She heard a song that made her think about what hip-hop music sounded like in its early days.а Steve Ember has our story. (MUSIC) STEVE EMBER: This is not the song Caty heard.а This is "Good Times" by the group Chic.а "Good Times" became a disco hit in nineteen seventy-nine.а But it also played a part in a song released later that year by another group. They called themselves the Sugarhill Gang: Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee.а And they called their song "Rapper's Delight."а (MUSIC) "Rapper's Delight" earned a place in pop music history.а It became the first rap song to appear on the list of the Billboard Top Forty hits in popular music.а Here is another song from the Sugarhill Gang.а This one is called "Apache." (MUSIC) Today, the form of hip-hop that the Sugarhill Gang became famous for is known as old school.а It still has a following.а And the gang is still performing, twenty-six years after "Rapper's Delight." We leave you with Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee, and their song called "Eighth Wonder." (MUSIC) HOST: I'm Gwen Outen.а I hope you enjoyed our program. Our show was written by Nancy Steinbach, Ed Stautberg and Caty Weaver, who was also our producer.а Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com.а Please include your full name and mailing address.а Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.а Please join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAТs radio magazine in Special English.

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G8 Nations

G-8 Nations Move to Cancel Debt of Poorest Countries IТm Steve Ember with IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.а Hopes grew all week for a plan to cancel the debt of some of the world's poorest countries.а On Friday, Britain's finance minister said he expected the Group of Eight nations to reach an agreement.а Gordon Brown said the debt cancellation plan would be the largest ever.а But Mister Brown also said much remains to be discussed. The treasury chief commented as Group of Eight finance ministers gathered in London for two days of talks.а G-Eight leaders will meet July sixth through the eighth in Scotland.а Two major issues to discuss are Africa and climate change. British officials said the plan would cancel the debt of eighteen countries at first.а Officials say the plan could help close to forty countries in all.а The Group of Eight countries are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.а They have disagreed about how best to deal with the huge debts owed by poor countries.а Some G-Eight members have proposed not to cancel debts, but to suspend repayments.а Another issue is how to pay for debt cancellation. British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with President Bush in Washington this week.а They said Britain and the United States were close to agreement on a proposal for the G-Eight.а Mister Bush said it would cancel one hundred percent of the debt of "highly indebted developing countries that are on the path to reform."а He said additional resources provided would protect the financial security of the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Mister Bush said American aid to Africa south of the Sahara is three times higher than it was four years ago.а He said America now provides nearly one-fourth of all aid to that area, and wants to do more in the future. The president announced more than six hundred seventy million dollars in aid for Africa.а The extra assistance is to help feed an estimated fourteen million people at risk of starving in Ethiopia and Eritrea.а Somalia and Djibouti are also expected to receive extra aid. But Mister Bush said no developed nation wants to give money to dishonest governments that do not take an interest in their people.а Nor is there interest, he says, in supporting governments that do not have open economies and open markets.а Mister Bush said aid helps.а But, in his words, "many African nations have come to discover that through trade, they can develop a more hopeful society." Tony Blair wants wealthy countries to increase aid to Africa by one hundred percent over the next five years.а Britain is president of the Group of Eight this year.а The prime minister has made fighting disease and poverty in Africa major goals.а IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Jerilyn Watson.а IТm Steve Ember.а

Listen carefully

Going distance

Going the Distance, Coast to Coast and Border to Border, on America's Highways VOICE ONE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.а On June twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-six, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public works bill.а The act of Congress provided federal aid to build the Interstate Highway System.а I'm Steve Ember.а Today Sarah Long and I present a brief history of road building and how it changed America. (MUSIC) America's national road system makes it possible to drive coast to coast.а From the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west is a distance of more than four thousand kilometers.а Or you could drive more than two thousand kilometers and go from the Canadian border south to the Mexican border.а VOICE TWO: You can drive these distances on wide, safe roads that have no traffic signals and no stop signs.а In fact, if you did not have to stop for gasoline or sleep, you could drive almost anywhere in the United States without stopping at all. This is possible because of the Interstate Highway System.а This system has almost seventy thousand kilometers of roads.а It crosses more than fifty-five thousand bridges and can be found in forty-nine of AmericaТs fifty states. The Interstate Highway System is usually two roads, one in each direction, separated by an area that is planted with grass and trees.а Each road holds two lines of cars that can travel at speeds between one hundred and one hundred twenty kilometers an hour.а The Interstate Highway System is only a small part of the huge system of roads in the United States. VOICE ONE: To understand the Interstate Highway System, it is helpful to understand the history of roads.а Roads in most countries were first built to permit armies to travel from one part of the country to another to fight against an invader. The ancient Romans build roads over most of Europe to permit their armies to move quickly from one place to another.а People who traded goods began using these roads for business.а Good roads helped them to move their goods faster from one area to another. No roads existed when early settlers arrived in the area of North America that would become the United States.а Most settlers built their homes near the ocean or along major rivers.а This made transportation easy.а A few early roads were built near some cities.а Travel on land was often difficult because there was no road system in most areas. VOICE TWO: In seventeen eighty-five, farmers in the Ohio River Valley used rivers to take cut trees to the southern city of New Orleans.а It was easier to walk or ride a horse home than to try to go by boat up the river. One of the first roads was built to help these farmers return home after they sold their wood.а It began as nothing more than a path used by Native Americans.а American soldiers helped make this path into an early road.а The new road extended from the city of Nashville, in Tennessee to the city of Natchez in the southern state of Louisiana.а It was called the Natchez Trace. You can still follow about seven hundred kilometers of the Natchez Trace.а Today, the road is a beautiful National Park.а It takes the traveler though forests that look much the same as they did two hundred years ago.а You can still see a few of the buildings in which early travelers slept overnight. VOICE ONE: The Natchez Trace was called a road.а Yet it was not what we understand a road to be.а It was just a cleared path through the forest.а It was used by people walking, or riding a horse or in a wagon pulled by horses. In eighteen-oh-six, President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation that approved money for building a road to make it easier to travel west.а Work began on the first part of the road in Cumberland in the eastern state of Maryland.а When finished, the road reached all the way to the city of Saint Louis in what would become the middle western state of Missouri.а It was named the National Road. The National Road was similar to the Natchez Trace.а It followed a path made by American Indians.а Work began in eighteen eleven.а It was not finished until about eighteen thirty-three.а The National Road was used by thousands of people who moved toward the west.а These people paid money to use the road.а This money was used to repair the road. Now, the old National Road is part of United States Highway Forty.а By the nineteen twenties, Highway Forty stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.а You can still see signs that say "National Road" along the side of parts of it.а Several statues were placed along this road to honor the women who moved west over the National Road in the eighteen hundreds. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: In nineteen hundred, it still was difficult to travel by road.а Nothing extended from the eastern United States to the extreme western part of the country.аа Several people wanted to see a road built all the way across the country.а Carl Fisher was a man who had ideas and knew how to act on them.а Mister Fisher built the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway where car races still take place.а In nineteen twelve, Carl Fisher began working on his idea to build a coast-to-coast highway using crushed rocks.а He called this dream the Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway.а VOICE ONE: Carl Fisher asked many people to give money for the project.а One of these men was Henry Joy, the president of the Packard Motor Car Company.а Mister Joy agreed, but suggested another name for the highway.а He said the road should be named after President Abraham Lincoln.а He said it should be called the Lincoln Highway. Everyone involved with the project agreed to the new name.а The Lincoln Highway began in the east in New York CityТs famous Times Square.а It ended in the west in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.а The Lincoln Highway was completed in about nineteen thirty-three. VOICE TWO: Later, the federal government decided to assign each highway in the country its own number.а Numbers were easier to remember than names.а The Lincoln Highway became Highway Thirty for most of its length. Today, you can still follow much of the Lincoln Highway.а It passes through small towns and large cities.а This makes it a slow but interesting way to travel.а Highway Thirty still begins in New York and ends near San Francisco.а And it is still remembered as the first coast-to-coast highway. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: In nineteen nineteen, a young Army officer named Dwight Eisenhower took part in the first crossing of the United States by Army vehicles.а The vehicles left Washington, D.C. and drove to San Francisco.а It was not a good trip.а The vehicles had problems with thick mud, ice and mechanical difficulties.а It took the American Army vehicles sixty-two days to reach San Francisco. Dwight Eisenhower believed the United States needed a highway that would aid in the defense of the country.а He believed the nation needed a road system that would permit military vehicles to travel quickly from one coast to the other. In nineteen fifty-six, Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States.а He signed the legislation that created the federal Interstate Highway System.а Work was begun almost immediately. VOICE TWO: Building such an interstate highway system was a major task.а Many problems had to be solved.а The highway passed through different areas that were wetlands, mountains and deserts.а It was very difficult to build the system.а Yet lessons learned while building it influenced the building of highways around the world.а Today, the interstate system links every major city in the United States. аIt also links the United States with Canada and Mexico.а The Interstate Highway System has been an important part of the nationТs economic growth during the past forty years.а Experts believe that trucks using the system carry about seventy-five percent of all products that are sold.а Jobs and new businesses have been created near the busy interstate highways all across the United States.а These include hotels, motels, eating places, gasoline stations and shopping centers. The highway system has made it possible for people to work in a city and live outside it.а And it has made it possible for people to travel easily and quickly from one part of the country to another. The United States government renamed the Interstate Highway System at the end of the twentieth century.а Large signs now can be seen along the side of the highway that say Eisenhower Interstate System. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Our program was written by Paul Thompson.а My co-host was Sarah Long.а I'm Steve Ember.а To download a free copy of this show, including a transcript, go to voaspecialenglish.com.а And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Listen carefully

Hip-hop and jazz

Hip-Hop, Jazz Meet in the Music of Chrisette Michele HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English. (MUSIC) I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week: We listen to some music from Chrisette Michele Е Answer a listener's question about gun control in the United States Е And report about a popular service of the Voice of America. VOA Pronunciation Guide Every day, someone somewhere in the world uses the Internet Web site of the Voice of America Pronunciation Guide. And now, any computer sound system can be used to hear its correct pronunciations. Mario Ritter tells us more. MARIO RITTER: The Pronunciation Guide began as a tool for VOA announcers to show them how to pronounce names in the news.а The guide lists more than six thousand names, including political leaders, scientists and other people in the news. There are also names of places and organizations.а The Web site shows the correct way to say the name and plays a recording.а Let us say you need to know how to pronounce the name of Iran's President.а On the Web site, you will see the name and hear: (SOUND) Jim Tedder is the VOA announcer who developed this online pronunciation tool.а Yes, the same Jim Tedder who reads Special English news. Jim says he updates the list several times a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year.а When a new name appears in the news, Jim works quickly to find the correct pronunciation so he can add the name to the list.а He gets a lot of help from people who work in this building. VOA broadcasts in forty-six languages.а So he could call someone in the Chinese branch to ask how to pronounce a Chinese name.а Sometimes, no one at VOA can help him.а So Jim calls the person directly, if possible.а Or he calls an embassy here in Washington, or a delegation at the United Nations in New York City. The pronunciation guide is an important tool for VOA broadcasters.а But it has also become extremely popular with other radio and television stations around the world.а Students and teachers also use the guide.а So do business people and anyone who wants to make sure they can pronounce a person's name correctly.а So how can you find the VOA Pronunciation Guide?а One way is to go to the Special English Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Click on "Other Resources" at the bottom of the left side column.а Then choose "Pronunciation Guide" from the list. Gun Control HOST: Our listener question today comes from China. Sean wants to know about gun control laws in the United States. Many Americans feel very strongly about the subject of gun control. Some people believe that a person has the right to own a gun. Others believe the government must control the sale and use of guns to reduce gun violence and protect public safety. The fact that gun laws are different in every state makes the issue even more complex. Some estimates say about thirty percent of the American population own guns.а The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is often at the center of gun control debates.а It says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The National Rifle Association uses this amendment to support the argument that individuals have the right to own guns. However, people who support gun control laws say this amendment has been misunderstood. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence works to improve laws controlling guns in an effort to protect public safety. It says eighty people die each day in this country because of guns.а And it says the United States leads the world in the number of deaths each year due to gun violence. It often takes a tragedy to increase efforts to reform gun laws in the United States. For example, in the nineteen sixties President John F. Kennedy, his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior were killed by gunfire. The Gun Control Act of nineteen sixty-eight made it illegal for criminals to buy guns. But it was not until the Brady Act of nineteen ninety-three that a personТs criminal record had to be examined before the person could buy a gun. Last year, a troubled college student at Virginia Tech bought two guns and shot and killed thirty-two teachers and students. The twenty-three year old killer had a history of mental illness that should have prevented him from buying a gun. Earlier this month, President Bush signed a law to improveа background checks so that they include more criminal and mental health records. It is meant to prevent people with a history of dangerous mental illness from buying guns.The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case on guns and the meaning of the Second Amendment.а It is expected to announce its decision in June. Chrisette Michele Singer-songwriter Chrisette Michele's voice has set her apart from other singers her age.а Some music critics say the twenty-three year old sounds like the great jazz singer Billie Holiday.а Chrisette combines that sound with her love for hip-hop music.а Barbara Klein plays some of her music. BARBARA KLEIN: Chrisette Michele first became popular in two thousand six for the songs she wrote and performed with major hip-hop artists, including Jay-Z and Nas.аа Although Chrisette has always valued the religious music she sings in church, she also describes herself as a child of the hip-hop culture.а The many musical influences can be heard on her album "I Am."а Here she sings УLike a Dream." (MUSIC) When Chrisette was in high school one of her teachers introduced her to jazz music.а She immediately fell in love with the music of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.а After college, Chrisette began performing in small clubs in New York City.а Music industry experts noted how she combines the influences of soulful gospel and jazz singing with energetic hip-hop beats.аа Here she sings "Be OK." (MUSIC) We leave you with another song by Chrisette Michele from her album УI Am.Фа Here she sings the love song УIf I Have My Way.Ф (MUSIC) HOST: I'm Doug Johnson.а I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Lawan Davis, Nancy Steinbach and Dana Demange who was also our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.а Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com.а Please include your full name and mailing address.а Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.а Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAТs radio magazine in Special English.а

Listen carefully

History repeats

History Repeats Itself: A Fresh Start to 'The Making of a Nation' VOICE ONE: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember. Today history repeats itself. We start our series over again. The last time we were at the beginning was in February of two thousand three. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: THE MAKING OF A NATION has a loyal following. In fact, listener research finds it the most popular weekly program in VOA Special English. It started in May of nineteen sixty-nine. Some people can remember when THE MAKING OF A NATION was on the radio two times a week. People who grew up listening to it are old enough now to listen with their own children, or even their grandchildren. The series tells a story. You can think of it not just as a series of programs about the history of America and its people, but a series of lessons. The subjects include exploration, revolution, civil war, social and political change, the rise of industry and modern technology, and more. VOICE TWO: We ended last week at program number two hundred thirty-eight. The subject was the presidential election of two thousand four. As time adds to the story, we add new programs to the series. In a sense, THE MAKING OF A NATION is a living history. Yet some of the announcers are no longer even alive after all these years. Here and there, too, the language may sound a little dated. For example, some of the programs call black people Negroes. The use of that term may be historically correct, but today the socially accepted name is African-American. Technology has also changed. Today THE MAKING OF A NATION is not just on radio but also on the Internet. At voaspecialenglish.com, you can download MP3 files and transcripts. That way you can listen anytime or anyplace -- and read along. The site also includes archives, in case you ever miss a program. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: So how was the nation made? Why did loyal citizens rebel against one nation and start their own, with different laws? THE MAKING OF A NATION answers these and other questions about American history. We tell the story of how a group of farmers, businessmen and lawyers wrote a document they called the Constitution of the United States. On September seventeenth, seventeen eighty-seven, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met one last time to sign it. We explain why that document is still extremely important today -- and not just to Americans. Other governments have used it as a guide to creating a modern democracy. VOICE TWO: We explore why the writers of the Constitution included guarantees of freedom of speech and religion, and the right to a fair and public trial. We also talk about the reasons for the American Revolution. One of the most important was the idea that citizens of a country should have a voice in its decisions. British citizens in the American colonies paid taxes but had no representatives in the British Parliament. Taxation without representation led to growing anger in the American colonies. The leaders of the revolt made important changes. They decided that any free citizen could be a candidate for public office. And they made sure that all free men who owned land and paid taxes were permitted to vote. Not until nineteen twenty did the Constitution give women the right to vote. Later, another change lowered the voting age for Americans from twenty-one to eighteen. Our programs explain the thinking behind these and other rights. They also tell the story of each presidential election and presidency in American history. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: THE MAKING OF A NATION explores the good and the bad in American history. For example, how could slavery exist in a nation whose people declared that "all men are created equal" and with a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?а Many programs tell about the ideas and issues that have shaped the United States. But most importantly, they tell about the people. For example, George Washington was a farmer before he became a military commander. He became president because the citizens of the new country wanted him as their first leader. After two terms, he gave up power by his own choice. He once again became a farmer and a private citizen. In his farewell address in seventeen ninety-six, he warned Americans about the dangers of political parties. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. It told the world that the people of this new country would no longer answer to a European ruler. VOICE TWO: Some of the people who formed the United States into a nation during the seventeen hundreds were well educated and wealthy. Abraham Lincoln was not. Still, he grew up to become president. Abraham Lincoln became president during the eighteen sixties when several southern states decided they no longer wanted to be part of the United States. We tell how President Lincoln dealt with the terrible Civil War that almost split the country apart. VOICE ONE: One of our programs deals with a speech he gave in the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A great battle had been fought there. President Lincoln had been asked to come to Gettysburg to say a few words at the dedication of a military burial place. The speech was short. President Lincoln honored the young men who had died on that bloody battlefield. He also told the world why the terrible war was being fought and why it was so important. "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Those words were just the first sentence. After President Lincoln wrote the speech, he felt sad. He considered it a failure. In fact, his words earned the respect of history. You can hear the full Gettysburg Address in our programs about the life and presidency of Abraham Lincoln. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: THE MAKING OF A NATION touches on many different subjects. One of them is social change. For example, we tell about the changes that took place in the nineteen twenties, known as the Roaring Twenties. Many young people decided they no longer needed to follow the conservative traditions of their parents and grandparents. This was the age of jazz. (MUSIC)ааааааааааааааааа VOICE ONE: But music and social values were not the only things changing. The Roaring Twenties were also a time of fast-moving economic change. Productivity grew sharply. At the same time, the divide between rich and poor Americans grew wider. By the end of the Roaring Twenties, the economy was ready to collapse. Then, in October of nineteen twenty-nine, the stock market crashed. What followed was an economic disaster worse than any the modern world has ever known. We examine the causes of the Great Depression and how it affected Americans and the rest of the world. We tell the story of people who lost their jobs, their homes and their hope for the future. VOICE TWO: Franklin Roosevelt was elected with a promise to bring the country out of the Depression. On March fourth, nineteen thirty-three, he was inaugurated to his first of four terms. He served longer than any other president in American history. We discuss Roosevelt's New Deal programs and his leadership during World War Two. But not all of the subjects on THE MAKING OF A NATION are so serious. We also look at the history of American popular culture and subjects like the rise of high technology. Something for everyone. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Today's news is not only tomorrow's history, it will also become part of THE MAKING OF A NATION. But for now, we start again from the beginning. I'm Shirley Griffith. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember. Join us at this time next week and every week as we go back in time. Listen on radio or online at voaspecialenglish.com as we bring you THE MAKING OF A NATION in VOA Special English.

Listen carefully

Immigrants

Immigrants: America's Industrial Growth Depended on Them (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English. (MUSIC) In our last program, we told the story of the Statue of Liberty, given to the United States by the people of France. The "Lady of Liberty" holds a bright torch high over the harbor of New York City. Her torch of freedom was a welcome signal to millions of immigrants arriving to begin a new life in America. VOICE TWO: American life was changing. And it was changing quickly. Before eighteen sixty, the United States had an agricultural economy. After eighteen sixty, the country began to change from an agricultural to an industrial economy. In eighteen sixty, American shops and factories produced less than two thousand million dollars' worth of goods. Thirty years later, in eighteen ninety, American factories produced ten thousand million dollars' worth. By then, more than five million persons were working in factories and mines. Another three million had jobs in the building industries and transportation. VOICE ONE: Year after year, production continued to increase. And the size of the industrial labor force continued to grow. A great many of the new industrial workers came from American farms. Farm work was hard, and the pay was low. Young men left the family farms as soon as they could. They went to towns and cities to look for an easier and better way of life. Many of them found it in the factories. A young man who worked hard and learned new skills could rise quickly to better and better jobs. This was not only true for farmers, but also for immigrants who came to the United States from foreign countries. They came from many different lands and for many different reasons. But all came with the same hope for a better life in a new world. VOICE TWO: In the eighteen fifties, America's industrial revolution was just beginning. Factories needed skilled workers -- men who knew how to do all the necessary jobs. Factory owners offered high pay to workers who had these skills. British workers had them. Many had spent years in British factories. Pay was poor in Britain, and these skilled workers could get much more money in America. So, many of them came. Hundreds of thousands. Some factories -- even some industries -- seemed completely British. VOICE ONE: Cloth factories in Fall River, Massachusetts, were filled with young men from Lancashire, England.аMost of the workers in the shipyards of San Francisco were from Scotland. Many of the coal miners in America were men from the British mines in Wales. Many were farmers who came to America because they could get land for nothing. They could build new farms for themselves in the rich land of the American west. VOICE TWO: One of the best-liked songs in Britain then was a song about the better life in America. Its name: "To The West. " Its words helped many men decide to Make the move to America. "To The west, to the west, to the land of the free where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; where a man is a man if he's willing to toil. And the poorest may harvest the fruits of the soil. Where the young may exult and the aged may rest, away, far away, to the land of the west." VOICE ONE: To another group of immigrants, America was the last hope. Ireland in the eighteen forties suffered one crop failure after another. Hungry men had to leave. In eighteen fifty alone, more than one hundred seventeen thousand people came to the United States from Ireland. Most had no money and little education. To those men and women, America was a magic name. VOICE TWO: Throughout Europe, when times were hard, people talked of going to America. In some countries, organizations were formed to help people emigrate to the United States. A Polish farmer wrote to such an organization in Warsaw: "I want to go to America. But I have no money. I have nothing but the ten fingers of my hands, a wife, and nine children. I have no work at all, although I am strong and healthy and only forty-five years old. I have been to many towns and cities in Poland, wherever I could go. Nowhere could I earn much money. I wish to work. But what can I do. I will not steal, and I have no work. So, I beg you to accept me for a journey to America." VOICE ONE: As the years passed, fewer people were moving to America for a better job. Most were coming now for any job at all. Work was hard to find in any of the cities in Europe. A British lawmaker told parliament in eighteen seventy that Englishmen were leaving their country, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. They could not find work at home. He said that even as he spoke, hundreds were dying of hunger in London and other British cities. They were victims of the new revolution in agriculture and industry. Small family farms were disappearing. In their places rose large modern farms that could produce much more. New machines took the place of men. And millions of farmers had to look for other work. Some found it in the factories. Industry was growing quickly...but not quickly enough to give jobs to all the farmers out of work. VOICE TWO: In the next ten years, millions of people made the move from Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. But then, as industry in those countries grew larger, and more jobs opened, the flood of immigration began to slow. The immigrants now were coming from southern and eastern Europe. Anti-Jewish feeling swept Russia and Poland. Violence against Jews caused many of them to move to America. In the late eighteen eighties, cholera spread through much of southern Italy. Fear of the disease led many families to leave for the United States. Others left when their governments began building up strong armies. Young men who did not want to be soldiers often escaped by moving to America. Big armies were costly, and many people left because they did not want to pay the high taxes. Whatever the reason, people continued to immigrate to the United States. VOICE ONE: These new immigrants were not like those who came earlier. These new immigrants had no skills. Most were unable to read or write. Factory owners found that these eastern and southern Europeans were hard workers. They did not protest because the work was hard and the pay was low. They did not demand better working conditions. They did not join unions or strike. Factory owners began to replace higher-paid American and British workers with the new immigrants. Business leaders wanted more of the new workers. They urged the immigrants to write letters to their friends and relatives in the old country. "Tell them to come to America, that there are plenty of jobs." VOICE TWO: Letters from America brought many more immigrants. The big steamship companies also helped industry to get more of the new workers. They paid thousands of agents throughout Europe to sell tickets for the trip to America. Their efforts meant that steamships bringing grain to Europe could return to America filled with immigrants. They came by the hundreds of thousands. People of all religions, from all across Europe. Many remained in New York and other eastern cities. But many others moved westward. They took jobs in the steel factories of Pennsylvania and the coal mines of West Virginia. They worked in the lumber camps of Michigan and in the stockyards and meat-packing plants of Chicago. VOICE ONE: Within a few years, foreign-born workers held most of the unskilled jobs in many American industries. American workers began to protest. They demanded an end to the flood of immigration. That will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION, a program in Special English. Your narrators were Leo Scully and Maurice Joyce. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.

Listen carefully

Indiana Dunes

Indiana Dunes: Beautiful Sand Hills and Wildlife in the Midwest (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: This is Faith Lapidus. VOICE TWO: And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS.а Today we visit the Indiana Dunes.а These hills of sand are near Chicago, Illinois.а They rise on the shores of Lake Michigan, one of AmericaТs five Great Lakes. а (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Indiana Dunes More than two million people visit the sand hills in the middle western state of Indiana each year.а The winds along Lake Michigan created some of these dunes in ancient times.а Other dunes may be building right now.а The winds create dunes when they drop loose sand onto land.а Some dunes look partly round.а Others take the form of long, narrow hills.а Visitors from all over the world explore the area near the Indiana Dunes.а They swim and sail on the lake.а They watch birds in the wetlands.а They study plant life in the rich forests of oak and maple trees. The smooth sands of the dunes and lakeshore make a clear musical sound when people walk on them.а Some of these sounds can be heard ten meters away.а Visitors often say that the sand dunes Уsing.Ф VOICE TWO: The Indiana state government and the federal government control more than six thousand hectares of land along the lake.а They operate parks with visitorsТ areas and scientific research stations.а Supervision by these agencies guarantees that the land will always belong to the public.а Laws protect the plants, animals, and natural and historical points of interest. During the twentieth century, many people worked hard to save the dunes from development for industrial and port uses.а This was not easy.а The land along that area of Lake Michigan is extremely valuable.а Some of the land provides important lake ports.а Industries and IndianaТs natural-gas company also operate along the lake.а VOICE ONE: In the early nineteen fifties, some companies were removing five tons of sand each day from the dunes.а Scientists of the Indiana Geological Survey investigated the sand supply in nineteen fifty-two.а They said that the dunes would be gone in fifty to one hundred years if companies continued to remove sand at that rate.а The wind and waves of Lake Michigan created the dunes over thousands of years.а Yet people could destroy the dunes in a lifetime.аа а(MUSIC) VOICE TWO: The federal government established the National Park Service in nineteen sixteen.а A Chicago businessman named Stephen Mather was its first director.а Mister Mather created many national parks.а He wanted the Indiana dunes to be a national park, too.а However, the United States had entered World War One in nineteen seventeen.а Congress was not thinking about creating parks.а It was thinking about soldiers and military supplies. Public support for a protected dunes park continued to grow, however.а In nineteen twenty-three, Indiana passed a bill providing tax money to buy property along the lake from its private owners.а In nineteen twenty-six, the Indiana Dunes State Park opened.а It contained more than eight hundred hectares of land. VOICE ONE: Area citizens, scientists and visitors were pleased with the state park.а But they did not feel satisfied.а They wanted much more land along the lake protected from being used for more factories and industrial ports. Activist Dorothy Buell led the campaign for a national park in the dunes.а She formed the Save the Dunes Council in nineteen fifty-two.а IndianaТs representatives in the United States Senate opposed the proposed park. They said ports on the lake would provide more jobs for local workers than a national park.а Yet the Save the Dunes Council found a powerful friend in United States Senator Paul Douglas.а He represented the nearby state of Illinois.а Senator Douglas loved the dunes.а Every year he would introduce a bill to create an Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.а But every year the bill failed to pass.а VOICE TWO: In nineteen sixty-six, people who wanted more development finally reached a compromise with people who wanted a national park.а Congress first passed a bill to develop more ports.а It also created the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.а More land was added to the park in later legislation.а Today more than six thousand hectares of the federal Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore also include the Indiana Dunes State Park. VOICE ONE: The Save the Dunes Council has been involved in many other battles.а It has successfully fought a number of threats.а These include the use of vehicles in the park.а Sand-mining. An airport on the lake.а And a nuclear power center near the park. The council has also pressed for stronger enforcement of air and water pollution control laws in the industrial areas near the park. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: A modern federal road follows a walking path in the dunes called the Beach Trail.а Long ago, this trail was a path between two forts.а Settlers built the forts to provide protection against attacks by native Indian tribes.а These forts became Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan. In eighteen twenty-two, a trader from the state of Michigan settled in the Indiana Dunes.а This man, Joseph Bailly, opened a store and raised a family near Lake Michigan.а He exchanged warm blankets and guns for the animal furs supplied by Indians and travelers. At first, Mister Bailly and his family lived in a small wood home.а The trader was building a bigger house when he died.а The National Park Service has repaired the outside of this large white home. VOICE ONE: Later, a student from the University of Chicago brought scientific knowledge to the dunes.а Henry Chandler Cowles received money from the university to study landforms and plant fossils from the time when ice covered much of the world.а In eighteen ninety-six, Mister Cowles decided the Indiana dunes would be an excellent place for his research. Mister CowlesТ studies showed how plant communities could make important changes in land.а His work demonstrated how groups of plants could create conditions for a sand dune to become a living forest. He became a well-known professor and researcher.аа The work of Henry Chandler Cowles in the Indiana Dunes helped spread the science of ecology throughout the world. аVOICE TWO:а Other scientists have explained how the sand hills formed.а They say a huge thick river of ice helped create the Indiana dunes.а Thousands of years ago this glacier moved over what is now central Indiana.а As the glacier moved, heavy ice crushed rocks into very small pieces.а Over time, part of the glacier became a body of water called Lake Chicago, an early version of Lake Michigan.а The melting glacier dropped the sand it had created around the lake. The sands of the present-day Lake Michigan are always moving.а The winds and waves of the lake carry sand to the surrounding land. Strong winds lift the sand and drop it on the land below.а This process starts building new dunes. VOICE ONE: Over time, plant life develops on these sand hills.а For example, the cottonwood tree is usually first to grow on a new dune. Then the winds dig a hole in the sand.а The winds use loose sand from the hole to create a large dune that moves.а Such a dune can damage or destroy anything in its way.а But cottonwood trees can help.а The trees grow roots along their trunks as sand buries them. аThe cottonwood roots help hold the dune in place.а (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: A dune called Mount Baldy guards the northern end of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Beautiful trees encircle its lower parts.а Thousands of people climb the thirty-eight meters to the top of Mount Baldy each year. But getting there can be difficult.а Climbers discover that their footsteps up the tall hill of sand often cause them to fall back again. Local people tell about a mysterious woman who once lived in a small house not far from Mount Baldy.а Alice Marble Gray moved to the Dunes from Chicago at age thirty-five.а Alice shocked people by swimming in Lake Michigan without a swimming suit.а Fishermen compared her to the Roman goddess Diana. аSo began the traditional story of Diana of the Dunes.а VOICE ONE: This legend says Diana fell in love with a man who treated her badly.а She died in nineteen twenty-five.а Health officials said her body showed evidence of beatings. As the years passed, people have claimed that they sometimes see her swimming in the lake.а They say that in the moonlight, you can still see Diana running along the sands of the Indiana Dunes.а а(MUSIC) VOICE TWO: This program was written by Jerilyn Watson.а It was produced by Mario Ritter.а IТm Steve Ember. VOICE ONE: And IТm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.а

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Population

Immigrants, Births Put US on Way to 400 Million by 2043 This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. This week, the national population clock at the United States Census Bureau reached three hundred million. This is only an estimate -- the next official count is in two thousand ten. But the Census Bureau says the United States is gaining one new person every eleven seconds. Government experts based this on an estimate of one birth every seven seconds and one death every thirteen seconds. They also considered immigration. The Census Bureau says an immigrant enters the country every thirty-one seconds. The United States is the third most populous country in the world, although it is still much smaller than China and India. Some hospitals claimed they had the three hundred millionth baby. Yet the three hundred millionth person in the United States could have been an immigrant. Experts say about fifty-five percent of new population growth has resulted from immigration, including the children of immigrants. Today twelve percent of the population is foreign-born. The leading place of origin is Mexico. In the past, it was Europe. America's population reached one hundred million in nineteen fifteen. It reached two hundred million just over fifty years later, in nineteen sixty-seven. But the country has taken less than forty years to reach three hundred million people. And researchers expect a population of four hundred million in even less time. At that point, in two thousand forty-three, non-Hispanic whites could make up just over half the population. In nineteen sixty-seven, more than eighty percent of Americans were white. Less than five percent were of Spanish ancestry. Today, Hispanics -- either American-born or foreign-born -- make up almost fifteen percent of the population.а About thirteen percent of the population is black, and about five percent is of Asian ancestry. The population growth in the United States is unusual among big industrial nations. Japan and some European countries expect their populations to decrease over the next twenty to thirty years. America is known as a nation of immigrants. But today, as at other times in its history, immigration is also a hot issue. There is debate especially about the millions who are in the country illegally. Reporters were invited to watch the Census Bureau clock hit three hundred million Tuesday morning. There was no big ceremony, although bureau employees later held a small event of their own at their offices near Washington. President Bush released a statement. He said the new population mark is, in his words, "further proof that the American Dream remains as bright and hopeful as ever." In nineteen fifteen, the most popular names for babies in the United States were John and Mary. This year they are Jacob and Emily. IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English, was written by Brianna Blake. MP3 files and transcripts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. IТm Steve Ember.

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Wells_The_time_machine

The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells [1898] I The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way--marking the points with a lean forefinger--as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity. 'You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.' 'Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair. 'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness _nil_, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.' 'That is all right,' said the Psychologist. 'Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.' 'There I object,' said Filby. 'Of course a solid body may exist. All real things--' 'So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an _instantaneous_ cube exist?' 'Don't follow you,' said Filby. 'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?' Filby became pensive. 'Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, 'any real body must have extension in _four_ directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and--Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.' 'That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; 'that ... very clear indeed.' 'Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. 'Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. _There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it_. But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?' '_I_ have not,' said the Provincial Mayor. 'It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why _three_ dimensions particularly--why not another direction at right angles to the other three?--and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four--if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?' 'I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. 'Yes, I think I see it now,' he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. 'Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing. 'Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this, 'know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.' 'But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, 'if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?' The Time Traveller smiled. 'Are you sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.' 'Not exactly,' said the Medical Man. 'There are balloons.' 'But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.' 'Still they could move a little up and down,' said the Medical Man. 'Easier, far easier down than up.' 'And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the present moment.' 'My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel _down_ if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's surface.' 'But the great difficulty is this,' interrupted the Psychologist. 'You _can_ move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about in Time.' 'That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?' 'Oh, _this_,' began Filby, 'is all--' 'Why not?' said the Time Traveller. 'It's against reason,' said Filby. 'What reason?' said the Time Traveller. 'You can show black is white by argument,' said Filby, 'but you will never convince me.' 'Possibly not,' said the Time Traveller. 'But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine--' 'To travel through Time!' exclaimed the Very Young Man. 'That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.' Filby contented himself with laughter. 'But I have experimental verification,' said the Time Traveller. 'It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the Psychologist suggested. 'One might travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!' 'Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the Medical Man. 'Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.' 'One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,' the Very Young Man thought. 'In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.' 'Then there is the future,' said the Very Young Man. 'Just think! One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead!' 'To discover a society,' said I, 'erected on a strictly communistic basis.' 'Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the Psychologist. 'Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until--' 'Experimental verification!' cried I. 'You are going to verify _that_?' 'The experiment!' cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary. 'Let's see your experiment anyhow,' said the Psychologist, 'though it's all humbug, you know.' The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory. The Psychologist looked at us. 'I wonder what he's got?' 'Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the Medical Man, and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby's anecdote collapsed. The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions. The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. 'Well?' said the Psychologist. 'This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, 'is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. 'Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.' The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. 'It's beautifully made,' he said. 'It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: 'Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.' There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. 'No,' he said suddenly. 'Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone--vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare. Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned. The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. 'Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe. We stared at each other. 'Look here,' said the Medical Man, 'are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?' 'Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) 'What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'--he indicated the laboratory--'and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.' 'You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby. 'Into the future or the past--I don't, for certain, know which.' After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. 'It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said. 'Why?' said the Time Traveller. 'Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.' 'But,' I said, 'If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!' 'Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller. 'Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: 'You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.' 'Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. 'That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. 'You see?' he said, laughing. We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all. 'It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.' 'Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be. 'Look here,' said the Medical Man, 'are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick--like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?' 'Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, 'I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.' None of us quite knew how to take it. I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly. II I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller's words, we should have shown _him_ far less scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things that would have made the frame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily. The serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china. So I don't think any of us said very much about time travelling in the interval between that Thursday and the next, though its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in most of our minds: its plausibility, that is, its practical incredibleness, the curious possibilities of anachronism and of utter confusion it suggested. For my own part, I was particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model. That I remember discussing with the Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnaean. He said he had seen a similar thing at Tubingen, and laid considerable stress on the blowing out of the candle. But how the trick was done he could not explain. The next Thursday I went again to Richmond--I suppose I was one of the Time Traveller's most constant guests--and, arriving late, found four or five men already assembled in his drawing-room. The Medical Man was standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his watch in the other. I looked round for the Time Traveller, and--'It's half-past seven now,' said the Medical Man. 'I suppose we'd better have dinner?' 'Where's----?' said I, naming our host. 'You've just come? It's rather odd. He's unavoidably detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at seven if he's not back. Says he'll explain when he comes.' 'It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,' said the Editor of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell. The Psychologist was the only person besides the Doctor and myself who had attended the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor aforementioned, a certain journalist, and another--a quiet, shy man with a beard--whom I didn't know, and who, as far as my observation went, never opened his mouth all the evening. There was some speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Traveller's absence, and I suggested time travelling, in a half-jocular spirit. The Editor wanted that explained to him, and the Psychologist volunteered a wooden account of the 'ingenious paradox and trick' we had witnessed that day week. He was in the midst of his exposition when the door from the corridor opened slowly and without noise. I was facing the door, and saw it first. 'Hallo!' I said. 'At last!' And the door opened wider, and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of surprise. 'Good heavens! man, what's the matter?' cried the Medical Man, who saw him next. And the whole tableful turned towards the door. He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer--either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it--a cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak. He said not a word, but came painfully to the table, and made a motion towards the wine. The Editor filled a glass of champagne, and pushed it towards him. He drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his face. 'What on earth have you been up to, man?' said the Doctor. The Time Traveller did not seem to hear. 'Don't let me disturb you,' he said, with a certain faltering articulation. 'I'm all right.' He stopped, held out his glass for more, and took it off at a draught. 'That's good,' he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came into his cheeks. His glance flickered over our faces with a certain dull approval, and then went round the warm and comfortable room. Then he spoke again, still as it were feeling his way among his words. 'I'm going to wash and dress, and then I'll come down and explain things ... Save me some of that mutton. I'm starving for a bit of meat.' He looked across at the Editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped he was all right. The Editor began a question. 'Tell you presently,' said the Time Traveller. 'I'm--funny! Be all right in a minute.' He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase door. Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall, and standing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out. He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered, blood-stained socks. Then the door closed upon him. I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered how he detested any fuss about himself. For a minute, perhaps, my mind was wool-gathering. Then, 'Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,' I heard the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines. And this brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table. 'What's the game?' said the Journalist. 'Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger? I don't follow.' I met the eye of the Psychologist, and read my own interpretation in his face. I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs. I don't think any one else had noticed his lameness. The first to recover completely from this surprise was the Medical Man, who rang the bell--the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner--for a hot plate. At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. The dinner was resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a little while, with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. 'Does our friend eke out his modest income with a crossing? or has he his Nebuchadnezzar phases?' he inquired. 'I feel assured it's this business of the Time Machine,' I said, and took up the Psychologist's account of our previous meeting. The new guests were frankly incredulous. The Editor raised objections. 'What _was_ this time travelling? A man couldn't cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?' And then, as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature. Hadn't they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing. They were both the new kind of journalist--very joyous, irreverent young men. 'Our Special Correspondent in the Day after To-morrow reports,' the Journalist was saying--or rather shouting--when the Time Traveller came back. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look remained of the change that had startled me. 'I say,' said the Editor hilariously, 'these chaps here say you have been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us all about little Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the lot?' The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word. He smiled quietly, in his old way. 'Where's my mutton?' he said. 'What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!' 'Story!' cried the Editor. 'Story be damned!' said the Time Traveller. 'I want something to eat. I won't say a word until I get some peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt.' 'One word,' said I. 'Have you been time travelling?' 'Yes,' said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding his head. 'I'd give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,' said the Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with his fingernail; at which the Silent Man, who had been staring at his face, started convulsively, and poured him wine. The rest of the dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions kept on rising to my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the others. The Journalist tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The Time Traveller devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette, and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and drank champagne with regularity and determination out of sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveller pushed his plate away, and looked round us. 'I suppose I must apologize,' he said. 'I was simply starving. I've had a most amazing time.' He reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. 'But come into the smoking-room. It's too long a story to tell over greasy plates.' And ringing the bell in passing, he led the way into the adjoining room. 'You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?' he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests. 'But the thing's a mere paradox,' said the Editor. 'I can't argue to-night. I don't mind telling you the story, but I can't argue. I will,' he went on, 'tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It's true--every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since then ... I've lived eight days ... such days as no human being ever lived before! I'm nearly worn out, but I shan't sleep till I've told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?' 'Agreed,' said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed 'Agreed.' And with that the Time Traveller began his story as I have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterwards he got more animated. In writing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink--and, above all, my own inadequacy--to express its quality. You read, I will suppose, attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker's white, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveller's face. III 'I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three! 'I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind. 'I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback--of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. 'The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hill-side upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed--melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring. 'The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind--a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread--until at last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hill-side, and remain there, without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping. 'The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered; I was, so to speak, attenuated--was slipping like a vapour through the interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way; meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction--possibly a far-reaching explosion--would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions--into the Unknown. This possibility had occurred to me again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk--one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air. 'There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones. The rebounding, dancing hail hung in a cloud over the machine, and drove along the ground like smoke. In a moment I was wet to the skin. "Fine hospitality," said I, "to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you." 'Presently I thought what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else of the world was invisible. 'My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly. It was very large, for a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder. It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared to me, was of bronze, and was thick with verdigris. It chanced that the face was towards me; the sightless eyes seemed to watch me; there was the faint shadow of a smile on the lips. It was greatly weather-worn, and that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of disease. I stood looking at it for a little space--half a minute, perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede as the hail drove before it denser or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the sun. 'I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common likeness--a foul creature to be incontinently slain. 'Already I saw other vast shapes--huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hill-side dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm. I was seized with a panic fear. I turned frantically to the Time Machine, and strove hard to readjust it. As I did so the shafts of the sun smote through the thunderstorm. The grey downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet of the thunderstorm, and picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk wings above and will swoop. My fear grew to frenzy. I took a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappled fiercely, wrist and knee, with the machine. It gave under my desperate onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently. One hand on the saddle, the other on the lever, I stood panting heavily in attitude to mount again. 'But with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered. I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were directed towards me. 'Then I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running. One of these emerged in a pathway leading straight to the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine. He was a slight creature--perhaps four feet high--clad in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a leather belt. Sandals or buskins--I could not clearly distinguish which--were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare. Noticing that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air was. 'He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive--that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much. At the sight of him I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the machine. IV 'In another moment we were standing face to face, I and this fragile thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me and laughed into my eyes. The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear struck me at once. Then he turned to the two others who were following him and spoke to them in a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue. 'There were others coming, and presently a little group of perhaps eight or ten of these exquisite creatures were about me. One of them addressed me. It came into my head, oddly enough, that my voice was too harsh and deep for them. So I shook my head, and, pointing to my ears, shook it again. He came a step forward, hesitated, and then touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure I was real. There was nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed, there was something in these pretty little people that inspired confidence--a graceful gentleness, a certain childlike ease. And besides, they looked so frail that I could fancy myself flinging the whole dozen of them about like nine-pins. But I made a sudden motion to warn them when I saw their little pink hands feeling at the Time Machine. Happily then, when it was not too late, I thought of a danger I had hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars of the machine I unscrewed the little levers that would set it in motion, and put these in my pocket. Then I turned again to see what I could do in the way of communication. 'And then, looking more nearly into their features, I saw some further peculiarities in their Dresden-china type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp end at the neck and cheek; there was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face, and their ears were singularly minute. The mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild; and--this may seem egotism on my part--I fancied even that there was a certain lack of the interest I might have expected in them. 'As they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other, I began the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. Then hesitating for a moment how to express time, I pointed to the sun. At once a quaintly pretty little figure in chequered purple and white followed my gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the sound of thunder. 'For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture was plain enough. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children--asked me, in fact, if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine in vain. 'I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. Then someone suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest building, and so I was led past the sphinx of white marble, which had seemed to watch me all the while with a smile at my astonishment, towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. As I went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible merriment, to my mind. 'The building had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal dimensions. I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of little people, and with the big open portals that yawned before me shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of the world I saw over their heads was a tangled waste of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long neglected and yet weedless garden. I saw a number of tall spikes of strange white flowers, measuring a foot perhaps across the spread of the waxen petals. They grew scattered, as if wild, among the variegated shrubs, but, as I say, I did not examine them closely at this time. The Time Machine was left deserted on the turf among the rhododendrons. 'The arch of the doorway was richly carved, but naturally I did not observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied I saw suggestions of old Phoenician decorations as I passed through, and it struck me that they were very badly broken and weather-worn. Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway, and so we entered, I, dressed in dingy nineteenth-century garments, looking grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft-colored robes and shining white limbs, in a melodious whirl of laughter and laughing speech. 'The big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall hung with brown. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed with coloured glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light. The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates nor slabs--blocks, and it was so much worn, as I judged by the going to and fro of past generations, as to be deeply channelled along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the length were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor, and upon these were heaps of fruits. Some I recognized as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for the most part they were strange. 'Between the tables was scattered a great number of cushions. Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise. With a pretty absence of ceremony they began to eat the fruit with their hands, flinging peel and stalks, and so forth, into the round openings in the sides of the tables. I was not loath to follow their example, for I felt thirsty and hungry. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my leisure. 'And perhaps the thing that struck me most was its dilapidated look. The stained-glass windows, which displayed only a geometrical pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains that hung across the lower end were thick with dust. And it caught my eye that the corner of the marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless, the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque. There were, perhaps, a couple of hundred people dining in the hall, and most of them, seated as near to me as they could come, were watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material. 'Fruit, by the by, was all their diet. These people of the remote future were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in spite of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also. Indeed, I found afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the fruits were very delightful; one, in particular, that seemed to be in season all the time I was there--a floury thing in a three-sided husk--was especially good, and I made it my staple. At first I was puzzled by all these strange fruits, and by the strange flowers I saw, but later I began to perceive their import. 'However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future now. So soon as my appetite was a little checked, I determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine. Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing to begin upon, and holding one of these up I began a series of interrogative sounds and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty in conveying my meaning. At first my efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter, but presently a fair-haired little creature seemed to grasp my intention and repeated a name. They had to chatter and explain the business at great length to each other, and my first attempts to make the exquisite little sounds of their language caused an immense amount of amusement. However, I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb "to eat." But it was slow work, and the little people soon tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations, so I determined, rather of necessity, to let them give their lessons in little doses when they felt inclined. And very little doses I found they were before long, for I never met people more indolent or more easily fatigued. 'A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but like children they would soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future, who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devices. 'The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the great hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different from the world I had known--even the flowers. The big building I had left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position. I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.D. For that, I should explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded. 'As I walked I was watching for every impression that could possibly help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I found the world--for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants--nettles possibly--but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of stinging. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure, to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience--the first intimation of a still stranger discovery--but of that I will speak in its proper place. 'Looking round with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a while, I realized that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. '"Communism," said I to myself. 'And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged, then, that the children of that time were extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. 'Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force; where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and off-spring are secure, there is less necessity--indeed there is no necessity--for an efficient family, and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality. 'While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I thought in a transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings towards the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently left alone for the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the crest. 'There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognize, corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half smothered in soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance of griffins' heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and fair a view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the great palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the whole earth had become a garden. 'So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I had seen, and as it shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half-truth--or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.) 'It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time I began to realize an odd consequence of the social effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life--the true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure--had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw! 'After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of to-day are still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human disease, but even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number to fight out a balance as they can. We improve our favourite plants and animals--and how few they are--gradually by selective breeding; now a new and better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them gradually, because our ideals are vague and tentative, and our knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organized, and still better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating; things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs. 'This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well; done indeed for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had leaped. The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. 'Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased to increase. 'But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. _Now_, where are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and it will grow, against connubial jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts; unnecessary things now, and things that make us uncomfortable, savage survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life. 'I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions. 'Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no great help--may even be hindrances--to a civilized man. And in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong, are indeed no longer weak. Better equipped indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived--the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then come languor and decay. 'Even this artistic impetus would at last die away--had almost died in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last! 'As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world--mastered the whole secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough--as most wrong theories are! V 'As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph of man, the full moon, yellow and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver light in the north-east. The bright little figures ceased to move about below, a noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the chill of the night. I determined to descend and find where I could sleep. 'I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye travelled along to the figure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I could see the silver birch against it. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes, black in the pale light, and there was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn again. A queer doubt chilled my complacency. "No," said I stoutly to myself, "that was not the lawn." 'But it _was_ the lawn. For the white leprous face of the sphinx was towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to me? But you cannot. The Time Machine was gone! 'At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment I was in a passion of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope. Once I fell headlong and cut my face; I lost no time in stanching the blood, but jumped up and ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin. All the time I ran I was saying to myself: "They have moved it a little, pushed it under the bushes out of the way." Nevertheless, I ran with all my might. All the time, with the certainty that sometimes comes with excessive dread, I knew that such assurance was folly, knew instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach. My breath came with pain. I suppose I covered the whole distance from the hill crest to the little lawn, two miles perhaps, in ten minutes. And I am not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I ran, at my confident folly in leaving the machine, wasting good breath thereby. I cried aloud, and none answered. Not a creature seemed to be stirring in that moonlit world. 'When I reached the lawn my worst fears were realized. Not a trace of the thing was to be seen. I felt faint and cold when I faced the empty space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round it furiously, as if the thing might be hidden in a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with my hands clutching my hair. Above me towered the sphinx, upon the bronze pedestal, white, shining, leprous, in the light of the rising moon. It seemed to smile in mockery of my dismay. 'I might have consoled myself by imagining the little people had put the mechanism in some shelter for me, had I not felt assured of their physical and intellectual inadequacy. That is what dismayed me: the sense of some hitherto unsuspected power, through whose intervention my invention had vanished. Yet, for one thing I felt assured: unless some other age had produced its exact duplicate, the machine could not have moved in time. The attachment of the levers--I will show you the method later--prevented any one from tampering with it in that way when they were removed. It had moved, and was hid, only in space. But then, where could it be? 'I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx, and startling some white animal that, in the dim light, I took for a small deer. I remember, too, late that night, beating the bushes with my clenched fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken twigs. Then, sobbing and raving in my anguish of mind, I went down to the great building of stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted. I slipped on the uneven floor, and fell over one of the malachite tables, almost breaking my shin. I lit a match and went on past the dusty curtains, of which I have told you. 'There I found a second great hall covered with cushions, upon which, perhaps, a score or so of the little people were sleeping. I have no doubt they found my second appearance strange enough, coming suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and flare of a match. For they had forgotten about matches. "Where is my Time Machine?" I began, bawling like an angry child, laying hands upon them and shaking them up together. It must have been very queer to them. Some laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened. When I saw them standing round me, it came into my head that I was doing as foolish a thing as it was possible for me to do under the circumstances, in trying to revive the sensation of fear. For, reasoning from their daylight behaviour, I thought that fear must be forgotten. 'Abruptly, I dashed down the match, and, knocking one of the people over in my course, went blundering across the big dining-hall again, out under the moonlight. I heard cries of terror and their little feet running and stumbling this way and that. I do not remember all I did as the moon crept up the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that maddened me. I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind--a strange animal in an unknown world. I must have raved to and fro, screaming and crying upon God and Fate. I have a memory of horrible fatigue, as the long night of despair wore away; of looking in this impossible place and that; of groping among moon-lit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows; at last, of lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness. I had nothing left but misery. Then I slept, and when I woke again it was full day, and a couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf within reach of my arm. 'I sat up in the freshness of the morning, trying to remember how I had got there, and why I had such a profound sense of desertion and despair. Then things came clear in my mind. With the plain, reasonable daylight, I could look my circumstances fairly in the face. I saw the wild folly of my frenzy overnight, and I could reason with myself. "Suppose the worst?" I said. "Suppose the machine altogether lost--perhaps destroyed? It behoves me to be calm and patient, to learn the way of the people, to get a clear idea of the method of my loss, and the means of getting materials and tools; so that in the end, perhaps, I may make another." That would be my only hope, perhaps, but better than despair. And, after all, it was a beautiful and curious world. 'But probably, the machine had only been taken away. Still, I must be calm and patient, find its hiding-place, and recover it by force or cunning. And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff, and travel-soiled. The freshness of the morning made me desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted my emotion. Indeed, as I went about my business, I found myself wondering at my intense excitement overnight. I made a careful examination of the ground about the little lawn. I wasted some time in futile questionings, conveyed, as well as I was able, to such of the little people as came by. They all failed to understand my gestures; some were simply stolid, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me. I had the hardest task in the world to keep my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind anger was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage of my perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found a groove ripped in it, about midway between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of my feet where, on arrival, I had struggled with the overturned machine. There were other signs of removal about, with queer narrow footprints like those I could imagine made by a sloth. This directed my closer attention to the pedestal. It was, as I think I have said, of bronze. It was not a mere block, but highly decorated with deep framed panels on either side. I went and rapped at these. The pedestal was hollow. Examining the panels with care I found them discontinuous with the frames. There were no handles or keyholes, but possibly the panels, if they were doors, as I supposed, opened from within. One thing was clear enough to my mind. It took no very great mental effort to infer that my Time Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a different problem. 'I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming through the bushes and under some blossom-covered apple-trees towards me. I turned smiling to them and beckoned them to me. They came, and then, pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to intimate my wish to open it. But at my first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly. I don't know how to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate-minded woman--it is how she would look. They went off as if they had received the last possible insult. I tried a sweet-looking little chap in white next, with exactly the same result. Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed of myself. But, as you know, I wanted the Time Machine, and I tried him once more. As he turned off, like the others, my temper got the better of me. In three strides I was after him, had him by the loose part of his robe round the neck, and began dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a sudden I let him go. 'But I was not beaten yet. I banged with my fist at the bronze panels. I thought I heard something stir inside--to be explicit, I thought I heard a sound like a chuckle--but I must have been mistaken. Then I got a big pebble from the river, and came and hammered till I had flattened a coil in the decorations, and the verdigris came off in powdery flakes. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand, but nothing came of it. I saw a crowd of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me. At last, hot and tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too restless to watch long; I am too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours--that is another matter. 'I got up after a time, and began walking aimlessly through the bushes towards the hill again. "Patience," said I to myself. "If you want your machine again you must leave that sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away, it's little good your wrecking their bronze panels, and if they don't, you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania. Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all." Then suddenly the humour of the situation came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud. 'Going through the big palace, it seemed to me that the little people avoided me. It may have been my fancy, or it may have had something to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back to the old footing. I made what progress I could in the language, and in addition I pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed some subtle point or their language was excessively simple--almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. I determined to put the thought of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx as much as possible in a corner of memory, until my growing knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet a certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a few miles round the point of my arrival. 'So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same exuberant richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I climbed I saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns. Here and there water shone like silver, and beyond, the land rose into blue undulating hills, and so faded into the serenity of the sky. A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was the presence of certain circular wells, several, as it seemed to me, of a very great depth. One lay by the path up the hill, which I had followed during my first walk. Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought, and protected by a little cupola from the rain. Sitting by the side of these wells, and peering down into the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water, nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match. But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud--thud--thud, like the beating of some big engine; and I discovered, from the flaring of my matches, that a steady current of air set down the shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of one, and, instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once sucked swiftly out of sight. 'After a time, too, I came to connect these wells with tall towers standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them there was often just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a sun-scorched beach. Putting things together, I reached a strong suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it was difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate it with the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was an obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong. 'And here I must admit that I learned very little of drains and bells and modes of conveyance, and the like conveniences, during my time in this real future. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail about building, and social arrangements, and so forth. But while such details are easy enough to obtain when the whole world is contained in one's imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as I found here. Conceive the tale of London which a negro, fresh from Central Africa, would take back to his tribe! What would he know of railway companies, of social movements, of telephone and telegraph wires, of the Parcels Delivery Company, and postal orders and the like? Yet we, at least, should be willing enough to explain these things to him! And even of what he knew, how much could he make his untravelled friend either apprehend or believe? Then, think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times, and how wide the interval between myself and these of the Golden Age! I was sensible of much which was unseen, and which contributed to my comfort; but save for a general impression of automatic organization, I fear I can convey very little of the difference to your mind. 'In the matter of sepulture, for instance, I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me that, possibly, there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the range of my explorings. This, again, was a question I deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely defeated upon the point. The thing puzzled me, and I was led to make a further remark, which puzzled me still more: that aged and infirm among this people there were none. 'I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going. 'Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, had taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. Why? For the life of me I could not imagine. Those waterless wells, too, those flickering pillars. I felt I lacked a clue. I felt--how shall I put it? Suppose you found an inscription, with sentences here and there in excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith, others made up of words, of letters even, absolutely unknown to you? Well, on the third day of my visit, that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to me! 'That day, too, I made a friend--of a sort. It happened that, as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes. When I realized this, I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and drew her safe to land. A little rubbing of the limbs soon brought her round, and I had the satisfaction of seeing she was all right before I left her. I had got to such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her. In that, however, I was wrong. 'This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I met my little woman, as I believe it was, as I was returning towards my centre from an exploration, and she received me with cries of delight and presented me with a big garland of flowers--evidently made for me and me alone. The thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At any rate I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift. We were soon seated together in a little stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have done. We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her name was Weena, which, though I don't know what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a queer friendship which lasted a week, and ended--as I will tell you! 'She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about it went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted and calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the world had to be mastered. I had not, I said to myself, come into the future to carry on a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I left her was very great, her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic, and I think, altogether, I had as much trouble as comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless she was, somehow, a very great comfort. I thought it was mere childish affection that made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her when I left her. Nor until it was too late did I clearly understand what she was to me. For, by merely seeming fond of me, and showing in her weak, futile way that she cared for me, the little doll of a creature presently gave my return to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold so soon as I came over the hill. 'It was from her, too, that I learned that fear had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered then, among other things, that these little people gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept in droves. To enter upon them without a light was to put them into a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within doors, after dark. Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson of that fear, and in spite of Weena's distress I insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. 'It troubled her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for me triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance, including the last night of all, she slept with her head pillowed on my arm. But my story slips away from me as I speak of her. It must have been the night before her rescue that I was awakened about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that I was drowned, and that sea anemones were feeling over my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start, and with an odd fancy that some greyish animal had just rushed out of the chamber. I tried to get to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of darkness, when everything is colourless and clear cut, and yet unreal. I got up, and went down into the great hall, and so out upon the flagstones in front of the palace. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity, and see the sunrise. 'The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the first pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half-light. The bushes were inky black, the ground a sombre grey, the sky colourless and cheerless. And up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. There several times, as I scanned the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw a solitary white, ape-like creature running rather quickly up the hill, and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I did not see what became of them. It seemed that they vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct, you must understand. I was feeling that chill, uncertain, early-morning feeling you may have known. I doubted my eyes. 'As the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the day came on and its vivid colouring returned upon the world once more, I scanned the view keenly. But I saw no vestige of my white figures. They were mere creatures of the half light. "They must have been ghosts," I said; "I wonder whence they dated." For a queer notion of Grant Allen's came into my head, and amused me. If each generation die and leave ghosts, he argued, the world at last will get overcrowded with them. On that theory they would have grown innumerable some Eight Hundred Thousand Years hence, and it was no great wonder to see four at once. But the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of these figures all the morning, until Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. I associated them in some indefinite way with the white animal I had startled in my first passionate search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon destined to take far deadlier possession of my mind. 'I think I have said how much hotter than our own was the weather of this Golden Age. I cannot account for it. It may be that the sun was hotter, or the earth nearer the sun. It is usual to assume that the sun will go on cooling steadily in the future. But people, unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin, forget that the planets must ultimately fall back one by one into the parent body. As these catastrophes occur, the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that some inner planet had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the sun was very much hotter than we know it. 'Well, one very hot morning--my fourth, I think--as I was seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a colossal ruin near the great house where I slept and fed, there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry, I found a narrow gallery, whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen masses of stone. By contrast with the brilliancy outside, it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me. I entered it groping, for the change from light to blackness made spots of colour swim before me. Suddenly I halted spellbound. A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against the daylight without, was watching me out of the darkness. 'The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me. I clenched my hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs. I was afraid to turn. Then the thought of the absolute security in which humanity appeared to be living came to my mind. And then I remembered that strange terror of the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced a step and spoke. I will admit that my voice was harsh and ill-controlled. I put out my hand and touched something soft. At once the eyes darted sideways, and something white ran past me. I turned with my heart in my mouth, and saw a queer little ape-like figure, its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block of granite, staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry. 'My impression of it is, of course, imperfect; but I know it was a dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But, as I say, it went too fast for me to see distinctly. I cannot even say whether it ran on all-fours, or only with its forearms held very low. After an instant's pause I followed it into the second heap of ruins. I could not find it at first; but, after a time in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those round well-like openings of which I have told you, half closed by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match, and, looking down, I saw a small, white, moving creature, with large bright eyes which regarded me steadfastly as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so like a human spider! It was clambering down the wall, and now I saw for the first time a number of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped, and when I had lit another the little monster had disappeared. 'I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. It was not for some time that I could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had seen was human. But, gradually, the truth dawned on me: that Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upper-world were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages. 'I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of an underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import. And what, I wondered, was this Lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? How was it related to the indolent serenity of the beautiful Upper-worlders? And what was hidden down there, at the foot of that shaft? I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that, at any rate, there was nothing to fear, and that there I must descend for the solution of my difficulties. And withal I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated, two of the beautiful Upper-world people came running in their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. The male pursued the female, flinging flowers at her as he ran. 'They seemed distressed to find me, my arm against the overturned pillar, peering down the well. Apparently it was considered bad form to remark these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and tried to frame a question about it in their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed and turned away. But they were interested by my matches, and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them again about the well, and again I failed. So presently I left them, meaning to go back to Weena, and see what I could get from her. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers, to the mystery of the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me. 'Here was the new view. Plainly, this second species of Man was subterranean. There were three circumstances in particular which made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of a long-continued underground habit. In the first place, there was the bleached look common in most animals that live largely in the dark--the white fish of the Kentucky caves, for instance. Then, those large eyes, with that capacity for reflecting light, are common features of nocturnal things--witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling awkward flight towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light--all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina. 'Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelled enormously, and these tunnellings were the habitat of the new race. The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes--everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley--showed how universal were its ramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went on to assume the _how_ of this splitting of the human species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though, for myself, I very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth. 'At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you--and wildly incredible!--and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilization; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance, there are new electric railways, there are subways, there are underground workrooms and restaurants, and they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought, this tendency had increased till Industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still-increasing amount of its time therein, till, in the end--! Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth? 'Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people--due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor--is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening gulf--which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich--will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of social stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough. 'The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to the Under-grounders I did not yet suspect; but from what I had seen of the Morlocks--that, by the by, was the name by which these creatures were called--I could imagine that the modification of the human type was even far more profound than among the "Eloi," the beautiful race that I already knew. 'Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said, to question Weena about this Under-world, but here again I was disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions, and presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the topic was unendurable. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs of the human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands, while I solemnly burned a match. VI 'It may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the half-bleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum. And they were filthily cold to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began to appreciate. 'The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a little disordered. I was oppressed with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite reason. I remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight--that night Weena was among them--and feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred to me even then, that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only I had had a companion it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my back. 'It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood, I observed far off, in the direction of nineteenth-century Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character from any I had hitherto seen. It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew, and the facade had an Oriental look: the face of it having the lustre, as well as the pale-green tint, a kind of bluish-green, of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore. But the day was growing late, and I had come upon the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit; so I resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite and aluminium. 'Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely disconcerted. "Good-bye, little Weena," I said, kissing her; and then putting her down, I began to feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most piteous cry, and running to me, she began to pull at me with her little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung. 'I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. For a moment I hung by one hand, and after that experience I did not dare to rest again. Though my arms and back were presently acutely painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent with as quick a motion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, a small blue disk, in which a star was visible, while little Weena's head showed as a round black projection. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again Weena had disappeared. 'I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone. But even while I turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft. 'I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the light. Living, as they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way. I have no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity, and they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion. 'I tried to call to them, but the language they had was apparently different from that of the Over-world people; so that I was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration was even then in my mind. But I said to myself, "You are in for it now," and, feeling my way along the tunnel, I found the noise of machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away from me, and I came to a large open space, and striking another match, saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern, which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of my light. The view I had of it was as much as one could see in the burning of a match. 'Necessarily my memory is vague. Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the by, was very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the match burned down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a wriggling red spot in the blackness. 'I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for such an experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances. I had come without arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke--at times I missed tobacco frightfully--even without enough matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Underworld in a second, and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood there with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me with--hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety-matches that still remained to me. 'I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me until that moment that there was any need to economize them, and I had wasted almost half the box in astonishing the Upper-worlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. I felt the box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They started away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently, and shouted again--rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape under the protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like the rain, as they hurried after me. 'In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked--those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!--as they stared in their blindness and bewilderment. But I did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge, for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit my last match ... and it incontinently went out. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as a trophy. 'That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle against this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I felt all the sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the well-mouth somehow, and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, for a time, I was insensible. VII 'Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse case than before. Hitherto, except during my night's anguish at the loss of the Time Machine, I had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape, but that hope was staggered by these new discoveries. Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people, and by some unknown forces which I had only to understand to overcome; but there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks--a something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as a man might feel who had fallen into a pit: my concern was with the pit and how to get out of it. Now I felt like a beast in a trap, whose enemy would come upon him soon. 'The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness of the new moon. Weena had put this into my head by some at first incomprehensible remarks about the Dark Nights. It was not now such a very difficult problem to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. The moon was on the wane: each night there was a longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to some slight degree at least the reason of the fear of the little Upper-world people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service. They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism. But, clearly, the old order was already in part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was coming back changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were becoming reacquainted with Fear. And suddenly there came into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Under-world. It seemed odd how it floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the current of my meditations, but coming in almost like a question from outside. I tried to recall the form of it. I had a vague sense of something familiar, but I could not tell what it was at the time. 'Still, however helpless the little people in the presence of their mysterious Fear, I was differently constituted. I came out of this age of ours, this ripe prime of the human race, when Fear does not paralyse and mystery has lost its terrors. I at least would defend myself. Without further delay I determined to make myself arms and a fastness where I might sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with some of that confidence I had lost in realizing to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was secure from them. I shuddered with horror to think how they must already have examined me. 'I wandered during the afternoon along the valley of the Thames, but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be. Then the tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls came back to my memory; and in the evening, taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills towards the south-west. The distance, I had reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on a moist afternoon when distances are deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a nail was working through the sole--they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors--so that I was lame. And it was already long past sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky. 'Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but after a while she desired me to let her down, and ran along by the side of me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vase for floral decoration. At least she utilized them for that purpose. And that reminds me! In changing my jacket I found...' The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative. 'As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and empty save for a few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well, that night the expectation took the colour of my fears. In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see through it the Morlocks on their ant-hill going hither and thither and waiting for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they would receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why had they taken my Time Machine? 'So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out. The ground grew dim and the trees black. Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her. I took her in my arms and talked to her and caressed her. Then, as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck, and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face against my shoulder. So we went down a long slope into a valley, and there in the dimness I almost walked into a little river. This I waded, and went up the opposite side of the valley, past a number of sleeping houses, and by a statue--a Faun, or some such figure, _minus_ the head. Here too were acacias. So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was yet early in the night, and the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come. 'From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either to the right or the left. Feeling tired--my feet, in particular, were very sore--I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches one would be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other lurking danger--a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon--there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike against. 'I was very tired, too, after the excitements of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but would pass the night upon the open hill. 'Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The hill-side was quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood there came now and then a stir of living things. Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me; it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend. 'Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional cycle that the pole of the earth describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And during these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought of the Great Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, her face white and starlike under the stars, and forthwith dismissed the thought. 'Through that long night I held my mind off the Morlocks as well as I could, and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear, except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of some colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and peaked and white. And close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the dawn came, pale at first, and then growing pink and warm. No Morlocks had approached us. Indeed, I had seen none upon the hill that night. And in the confidence of renewed day it almost seemed to me that my fear had been unreasonable. I stood up and found my foot with the loose heel swollen at the ankle and painful under the heel; so I sat down again, took off my shoes, and flung them away. 'I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood, now green and pleasant instead of black and forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to break our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night. And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. I felt assured now of what it was, and from the bottom of my heart I pitied this last feeble rill from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time in the Long-Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had run short. Possibly they had lived on rats and such-like vermin. Even now man is far less discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was--far less than any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep-seated instinct. And so these inhuman sons of men----! I tried to look at the thing in a scientific spirit. After all, they were less human and more remote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And the intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon--probably saw to the breeding of. And there was Weena dancing at my side! 'Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. I even tried a Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude of mind was impossible. However great their intellectual degradation, the Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation and their Fear. 'I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should pursue. My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That necessity was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some means of fire, so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, would be more efficient against these Morlocks. Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx. I had in mind a battering ram. I had a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. And turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way towards the building which my fancy had chosen as our dwelling. VIII 'I found the Palace of Green Porcelain, when we approached it about noon, deserted and falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had fallen away from the corroded metallic framework. It lay very high upon a turfy down, and looking north-eastward before I entered it, I was surprised to see a large estuary, or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea must once have been. I thought then--though I never followed up the thought--of what might have happened, or might be happening, to the living things in the sea. 'The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain, and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown character. I thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me to interpret this, but I only learned that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head. She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was so human. 'Within the big valves of the door--which were open and broken--we found, instead of the customary hall, a long gallery lit by many side windows. At the first glance I was reminded of a museum. The tiled floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering. Then I perceived, standing strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall, what was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I recognized by the oblique feet that it was some extinct creature after the fashion of the Megatherium. The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and in one place, where rain-water had dropped through a leak in the roof, the thing itself had been worn away. Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a Brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. But they must have been air-tight to judge from the fair preservation of some of their contents. 'Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latter-day South Kensington! Here, apparently, was the Palaeontological Section, and a very splendid array of fossils it must have been, though the inevitable process of decay that had been staved off for a time, and had, through the extinction of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, was nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. Here and there I found traces of the little people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily removed--by the Morlocks as I judged. The place was very silent. The thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently came, as I stared about me, and very quietly took my hand and stood beside me. 'And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented. Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little from my mind. 'To judge from the size of the place, this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be, even a library! To me, at least in my present circumstances, these would be vastly more interesting than this spectacle of oldtime geology in decay. Exploring, I found another short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be devoted to minerals, and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind running on gunpowder. But I could find no saltpeter; indeed, no nitrates of any kind. Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago. Yet the sulphur hung in my mind, and set up a train of thinking. As for the rest of the contents of that gallery, though on the whole they were the best preserved of all I saw, I had little interest. I am no specialist in mineralogy, and I went on down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall I had entered. Apparently this section had been devoted to natural history, but everything had long since passed out of recognition. A few shrivelled and blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed animals, desiccated mummies in jars that had once held spirit, a brown dust of departed plants: that was all! I was sorry for that, because I should have been glad to trace the patent readjustments by which the conquest of animated nature had been attained. Then we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but singularly ill-lit, the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which I entered. At intervals white globes hung from the ceiling--many of them cracked and smashed--which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit. Here I was more in my element, for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines, all greatly corroded and many broken down, but some still fairly complete. You know I have a certain weakness for mechanism, and I was inclined to linger among these; the more so as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles, and I could make only the vaguest guesses at what they were for. I fancied that if I could solve their puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers that might be of use against the Morlocks. 'Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So suddenly that she startled me. Had it not been for her I do not think I should have noticed that the floor of the gallery sloped at all. [Footnote: It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope, but that the museum was built into the side of a hill.--ED.] The end I had come in at was quite above ground, and was lit by rare slit-like windows. As you went down the length, the ground came up against these windows, until at last there was a pit like the "area" of a London house before each, and only a narrow line of daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling about the machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution of the light, until Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention. Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last into a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked round me, I saw that the dust was less abundant and its surface less even. Further away towards the dimness, it appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that. I felt that I was wasting my time in the academic examination of machinery. I called to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon, and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means of making a fire. And then down in the remote blackness of the gallery I heard a peculiar pattering, and the same odd noises I had heard down the well. 'I took Weena's hand. Then, struck with a sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike those in a signal-box. Clambering upon the stand, and grasping this lever in my hands, I put all my weight upon it sideways. Suddenly Weena, deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly, for it snapped after a minute's strain, and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient, I judged, for any Morlock skull I might encounter. And I longed very much to kill a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing one's own descendants! But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes I heard. 'Well, mace in one hand and Weena in the other, I went out of that gallery and into another and still larger one, which at the first glance reminded me of a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it, I presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me with keenest force was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified. At the time I will confess that I thought chiefly of the _Philosophical Transactions_ and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics. 'Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a little hope of useful discoveries. Except at one end where the roof had collapsed, this gallery was well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case. And at last, in one of the really air-tight cases, I found a box of matches. Very eagerly I tried them. They were perfectly good. They were not even damp. I turned to Weena. "Dance," I cried to her in her own tongue. For now I had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures we feared. And so, in that derelict museum, upon the thick soft carpeting of dust, to Weena's huge delight, I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance, whistling _The Land of the Leal_ as cheerfully as I could. In part it was a modest _cancan_, in part a step dance, in part a skirt-dance (so far as my tail-coat permitted), and in part original. For I am naturally inventive, as you know. 'Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange, as for me it was a most fortunate thing. Yet, oddly enough, I found a far unlikelier substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that by chance, I suppose, had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first that it was paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly. But the odour of camphor was unmistakable. In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of centuries. It reminded me of a sepia painting I had once seen done from the ink of a fossil Belemnite that must have perished and become fossilized millions of years ago. I was about to throw it away, but I remembered that it was inflammable and burned with a good bright flame--was, in fact, an excellent candle--and I put it in my pocket. I found no explosives, however, nor any means of breaking down the bronze doors. As yet my iron crowbar was the most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless I left that gallery greatly elated. 'I cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon. It would require a great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all the proper order. I remember a long gallery of rusting stands of arms, and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword. I could not carry both, however, and my bar of iron promised best against the bronze gates. There were numbers of guns, pistols, and rifles. The most were masses of rust, but many were of some new metal, and still fairly sound. But any cartridges or powder there may once have been had rotted into dust. One corner I saw was charred and shattered; perhaps, I thought, by an explosion among the specimens. In another place was a vast array of idols--Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician, every country on earth I should think. And here, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America that particularly took my fancy. 'As the evening drew on, my interest waned. I went through gallery after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous, the exhibits sometimes mere heaps of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher. In one place I suddenly found myself near the model of a tin-mine, and then by the merest accident I discovered, in an air-tight case, two dynamite cartridges! I shouted "Eureka!" and smashed the case with joy. Then came a doubt. I hesitated. Then, selecting a little side gallery, I made my essay. I never felt such a disappointment as I did in waiting five, ten, fifteen minutes for an explosion that never came. Of course the things were dummies, as I might have guessed from their presence. I really believe that had they not been so, I should have rushed off incontinently and blown Sphinx, bronze doors, and (as it proved) my chances of finding the Time Machine, all together into non-existence. 'It was after that, I think, that we came to a little open court within the palace. It was turfed, and had three fruit-trees. So we rested and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset I began to consider our position. Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible hiding-place had still to be found. But that troubled me very little now. I had in my possession a thing that was, perhaps, the best of all defences against the Morlocks--I had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket, too, if a blaze were needed. It seemed to me that the best thing we could do would be to pass the night in the open, protected by a fire. In the morning there was the getting of the Time Machine. Towards that, as yet, I had only my iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge, I felt very differently towards those bronze doors. Up to this, I had refrained from forcing them, largely because of the mystery on the other side. They had never impressed me as being very strong, and I hoped to find my bar of iron not altogether inadequate for the work. IX 'We emerged from the palace while the sun was still in part above the horizon. I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning, and ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods that had stopped me on the previous journey. My plan was to go as far as possible that night, and then, building a fire, to sleep in the protection of its glare. Accordingly, as we went along I gathered any sticks or dried grass I saw, and presently had my arms full of such litter. Thus loaded, our progress was slower than I had anticipated, and besides Weena was tired. And I began to suffer from sleepiness too; so that it was full night before we reached the wood. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped, fearing the darkness before us; but a singular sense of impending calamity, that should indeed have served me as a warning, drove me onward. I had been without sleep for a night and two days, and I was feverish and irritable. I felt sleep coming upon me, and the Morlocks with it. 'While we hesitated, among the black bushes behind us, and dim against their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There was scrub and long grass all about us, and I did not feel safe from their insidious approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather less than a mile across. If we could get through it to the bare hill-side, there, as it seemed to me, was an altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my matches and my camphor I could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods. Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish matches with my hands I should have to abandon my firewood; so, rather reluctantly, I put it down. And then it came into my head that I would amaze our friends behind by lighting it. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding, but it came to my mind as an ingenious move for covering our retreat. 'I don't know if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. The sun's heat is rarely strong enough to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops, as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the art of fire-making had been forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena. 'She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would have cast herself into it had I not restrained her. But I caught her up, and in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the wood. For a little way the glare of my fire lit the path. Looking back presently, I could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to the dark trees before me. It was very black, and Weena clung to me convulsively, but there was still, as my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for me to avoid the stems. Overhead it was simply black, except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us here and there. I struck none of my matches because I had no hand free. Upon my left arm I carried my little one, in my right hand I had my iron bar. 'For some way I heard nothing but the crackling twigs under my feet, the faint rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing and the throb of the blood-vessels in my ears. Then I seemed to know of a pattering about me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard in the Under-world. There were evidently several of the Morlocks, and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at my coat, then something at my arm. And Weena shivered violently, and became quite still. 'It was time for a match. But to get one I must put her down. I did so, and, as I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness about my knees, perfectly silent on her part and with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft little hands, too, were creeping over my coat and back, touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed. I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. I hastily took a lump of camphor from my pocket, and prepared to light it as soon as the match should wane. Then I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With a sudden fright I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the ground, and as it split and flared up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full of the stir and murmur of a great company! 'She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder and rose to push on, and then there came a horrible realization. In manoeuvring with my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about several times, and now I had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path. For all I knew, I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain. I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do. I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I put Weena, still motionless, down upon a turfy bole, and very hastily, as my first lump of camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and leaves. Here and there out of the darkness round me the Morlocks' eyes shone like carbuncles. 'The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match, and as I did so, two white forms that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One was so blinded by the light that he came straight for me, and I felt his bones grind under the blow of my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a little way, and fell down. I lit another piece of camphor, and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry was some of the foliage above me, for since my arrival on the Time Machine, a matter of a week, no rain had fallen. So, instead of casting about among the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping up and dragging down branches. Very soon I had a choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could economize my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I tried what I could to revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. 'Now, the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and it must have made me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapour of camphor was in the air. My fire would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very weary after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too, was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did not understand. I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. But all was dark, and the Morlocks had their hands upon me. Flinging off their clinging fingers I hastily felt in my pocket for the match-box, and--it had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me again. In a moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by the hair, by the arms, and pulled down. It was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered, and went down. I felt little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over, and as I did so my hand came against my iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking the human rats from me, and, holding the bar short, I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under my blows, and for a moment I was free. 'The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena were lost, but I determined to make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree, swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was full of the stir and cries of them. A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise to a higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew faster. Yet none came within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope. What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the heels of that came a strange thing. The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly I began to see the Morlocks about me--three battered at my feet--and then I recognized, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running, in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through the wood in front. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish. As I stood agape, I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of starlight between the branches, and vanish. And at that I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar, the red glow, and the Morlocks' flight. 'Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw, through the black pillars of the nearer trees, the flames of the burning forest. It was my first fire coming after me. With that I looked for Weena, but she was gone. The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection. My iron bar still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks' path. It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward so swiftly on my right as I ran that I was outflanked and had to strike off to the left. But at last I emerged upon a small open space, and as I did so, a Morlock came blundering towards me, and past me, and went on straight into the fire! 'And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing, I think, of all that I beheld in that future age. This whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hill-side were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment. At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck furiously at them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more. But when I had watched the gestures of one of them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery in the glare, and I struck no more of them. 'Yet every now and then one would come straight towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that made me quick to elude him. At one time the flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would presently be able to see me. I was thinking of beginning the fight by killing some of them before this should happen; but the fire burst out again brightly, and I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena. But Weena was gone. 'At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock, and watched this strange incredible company of blind things groping to and fro, and making uncanny noises to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through the rare tatters of that red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe, shone the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came blundering into me, and I drove them off with blows of my fists, trembling as I did so. 'For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a nightmare. I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake. I beat the ground with my hands, and got up and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my eyes and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their heads down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames. But, at last, above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light of the day. 'I searched again for traces of Weena, but there were none. It was plain that they had left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot describe how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined. As I thought of that, I was almost moved to begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, but I contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was a kind of island in the forest. From its summit I could now make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of Green Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings for the White Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant of these damned souls still going hither and thither and moaning, as the day grew clearer, I tied some grass about my feet and limped on across smoking ashes and among black stems, that still pulsated internally with fire, towards the hiding-place of the Time Machine. I walked slowly, for I was almost exhausted, as well as lame, and I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left me absolutely lonely again--terribly alone. I began to think of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some of you, and with such thoughts came a longing that was pain. 'But as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In my trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The box must have leaked before it was lost. X 'About eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of yellow metal from which I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival. I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening and could not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here was the same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river running between its fertile banks. The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees. Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena, and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain. And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupolas above the ways to the Under-world. I understood now what all the beauty of the Over-world people covered. Very pleasant was their day, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew of no enemies and provided against no needs. And their end was the same. 'I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes--to come to this at last. Once, life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed. 'It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers. 'So, as I see it, the Upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble prettiness, and the Under-world to mere mechanical industry. But that perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical perfection--absolute permanency. Apparently as time went on, the feeding of the Under-world, however it was effected, had become disjointed. Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few thousand years, came back again, and she began below. The Under-world being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought outside habit, had probably retained perforce rather more initiative, if less of every other human character, than the Upper. And when other meat failed them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say I saw it in my last view of the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give it to you. 'After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, and in spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing passed into dozing. Catching myself at that, I took my own hint, and spreading myself out upon the turf I had a long and refreshing sleep. 'I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against being caught napping by the Morlocks, and, stretching myself, I came on down the hill towards the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and the other hand played with the matches in my pocket. 'And now came a most unexpected thing. As I approached the pedestal of the sphinx I found the bronze valves were open. They had slid down into grooves. 'At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter. 'Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in the corner of this was the Time Machine. I had the small levers in my pocket. So here, after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx, was a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to use it. 'A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped towards the portal. For once, at least, I grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks. Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose. 'Now as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I was in the dark--trapped. So the Morlocks thought. At that I chuckled gleefully. 'I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came towards me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. I had only to fix on the levers and depart then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little thing. The matches were of that abominable kind that light only on the box. 'You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were close upon me. One touched me. I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them with the levers, and began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. Then came one hand upon me and then another. Then I had simply to fight against their persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time feel for the studs over which these fitted. One, indeed, they almost got away from me. As it slipped from my hand, I had to butt in the dark with my head--I could hear the Morlock's skull ring--to recover it. It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think, this last scramble. 'But at last the lever was fitted and pulled over. The clinging hands slipped from me. The darkness presently fell from my eyes. I found myself in the same grey light and tumult I have already described. XI 'I have already told you of the sickness and confusion that comes with time travelling. And this time I was not seated properly in the saddle, but sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how I went, and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to find where I had arrived. One dial records days, and another thousands of days, another millions of days, and another thousands of millions. Now, instead of reversing the levers, I had pulled them over so as to go forward with them, and when I came to look at these indicators I found that the thousands hand was sweeping round as fast as the seconds hand of a watch--into futurity. 'As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the appearance of things. The palpitating greyness grew darker; then--though I was still travelling with prodigious velocity--the blinking succession of day and night, which was usually indicative of a slower pace, returned, and grew more and more marked. This puzzled me very much at first. The alternations of night and day grew slower and slower, and so did the passage of the sun across the sky, until they seemed to stretch through centuries. At last a steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight only broken now and then when a comet glared across the darkling sky. The band of light that had indicated the sun had long since disappeared; for the sun had ceased to set--it simply rose and fell in the west, and grew ever broader and more red. All trace of the moon had vanished. The circling of the stars, growing slower and slower, had given place to creeping points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction. At one time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly again, but it speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this slowing down of its rising and setting that the work of the tidal drag was done. The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun, even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the dim outlines of a desolate beach grew visible. 'I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round. The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish colour, and all the trace of life that I could see at first was the intensely green vegetation that covered every projecting point on their south-eastern face. It was the same rich green that one sees on forest moss or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual twilight. 'The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the wan sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living. And along the margin where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of salt--pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppression in my head, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation reminded me of my only experience of mountaineering, and from that I judged the air to be more rarefied than it is now. 'Far away up the desolate slope I heard a harsh scream, and saw a thing like a huge white butterfly go slanting and fluttering up into the sky and, circling, disappear over some low hillocks beyond. The sound of its voice was so dismal that I shivered and seated myself more firmly upon the machine. Looking round me again, I saw that, quite near, what I had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly towards me. Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous crab-like creature. Can you imagine a crab as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long antennae, like carters' whips, waving and feeling, and its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of its metallic front? Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly bosses, and a greenish incrustation blotched it here and there. I could see the many palps of its complicated mouth flickering and feeling as it moved. 'As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling towards me, I felt a tickling on my cheek as though a fly had lighted there. I tried to brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost immediately came another by my ear. I struck at this, and caught something threadlike. It was drawn swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm, I turned, and I saw that I had grasped the antenna of another monster crab that stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws, smeared with an algal slime, were descending upon me. In a moment my hand was on the lever, and I had placed a month between myself and these monsters. But I was still on the same beach, and I saw them distinctly now as soon as I stopped. Dozens of them seemed to be crawling here and there, in the sombre light, among the foliated sheets of intense green. 'I cannot convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over the world. The red eastern sky, the northward blackness, the salt Dead Sea, the stony beach crawling with these foul, slow-stirring monsters, the uniform poisonous-looking green of the lichenous plants, the thin air that hurts one's lungs: all contributed to an appalling effect. I moved on a hundred years, and there was the same red sun--a little larger, a little duller--the same dying sea, the same chill air, and the same crowd of earthy crustacea creeping in and out among the green weed and the red rocks. And in the westward sky, I saw a curved pale line like a vast new moon. 'So I travelled, stopping ever and again, in great strides of a thousand years or more, drawn on by the mystery of the earth's fate, watching with a strange fascination the sun grow larger and duller in the westward sky, and the life of the old earth ebb away. At last, more than thirty million years hence, the huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to obscure nearly a tenth part of the darkling heavens. Then I stopped once more, for the crawling multitude of crabs had disappeared, and the red beach, save for its livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless. And now it was flecked with white. A bitter cold assailed me. Rare white flakes ever and again came eddying down. To the north-eastward, the glare of snow lay under the starlight of the sable sky and I could see an undulating crest of hillocks pinkish white. There were fringes of ice along the sea margin, with drifting masses further out; but the main expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset, was still unfrozen. 'I looked about me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I saw nothing moving, in earth or sky or sea. The green slime on the rocks alone testified that life was not extinct. A shallow sandbank had appeared in the sea and the water had receded from the beach. I fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon this bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and that the black object was merely a rock. The stars in the sky were intensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle very little. 'Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward outline of the sun had changed; that a concavity, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this grow larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this blackness that was creeping over the day, and then I realized that an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there is much to incline me to believe that what I really saw was the transit of an inner planet passing very near to the earth. 'The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives--all that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white peaks of the distant hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black. 'A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal--there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing--against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle. XII 'So I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible upon the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed, the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun backward upon the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses, the evidences of decadent humanity. These, too, changed and passed, and others came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened speed. I began to recognize our own petty and familiar architecture, the thousands hand ran back to the starting-point, the night and day flapped slower and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Very gently, now, I slowed the mechanism down. 'I saw one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think I have told you that when I set out, before my velocity became very high, Mrs. Watchett had walked across the room, travelling, as it seemed to me, like a rocket. As I returned, I passed again across that minute when she traversed the laboratory. But now her every motion appeared to be the exact inversion of her previous ones. The door at the lower end opened, and she glided quietly up the laboratory, back foremost, and disappeared behind the door by which she had previously entered. Just before that I seemed to see Hillyer for a moment; but he passed like a flash. 'Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them. I got off the thing very shakily, and sat down upon my bench. For several minutes I trembled violently. Then I became calmer. Around me was my old workshop again, exactly as it had been. I might have slept there, and the whole thing have been a dream. 'And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the south-east corner of the laboratory. It had come to rest again in the north-west, against the wall where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx, into which the Morlocks had carried my machine. 'For a time my brain went stagnant. Presently I got up and came through the passage here, limping, because my heel was still painful, and feeling sorely begrimed. I saw the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on the table by the door. I found the date was indeed to-day, and looking at the timepiece, saw the hour was almost eight o'clock. I heard your voices and the clatter of plates. I hesitated--I felt so sick and weak. Then I sniffed good wholesome meat, and opened the door on you. You know the rest. I washed, and dined, and now I am telling you the story. 'I know,' he said, after a pause, 'that all this will be absolutely incredible to you. To me the one incredible thing is that I am here to-night in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces and telling you these strange adventures.' He looked at the Medical Man. 'No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?' He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host. The Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar--the sixth. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I remember, were motionless. The Editor stood up with a sigh. 'What a pity it is you're not a writer of stories!' he said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller's shoulder. 'You don't believe it?' 'Well----' 'I thought not.' The Time Traveller turned to us. 'Where are the matches?' he said. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. 'To tell you the truth ... I hardly believe it myself.... And yet...' His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles. The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. 'The gynaeceum's odd,' he said. The Psychologist leant forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen. 'I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one,' said the Journalist. 'How shall we get home?' 'Plenty of cabs at the station,' said the Psychologist. 'It's a curious thing,' said the Medical Man; 'but I certainly don't know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?' The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: 'Certainly not.' 'Where did you really get them?' said the Medical Man. The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. 'They were put into my pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time.' He stared round the room. 'I'm damned if it isn't all going. This room and you and the atmosphere of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever make a Time Machine, or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life is a dream, a precious poor dream at times--but I can't stand another that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the dream come from? ... I must look at that machine. If there is one!' He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew; a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid to the touch--for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it--and with brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon the lower parts, and one rail bent awry. The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand along the damaged rail. 'It's all right now,' he said. 'The story I told you was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out here in the cold.' He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the smoking-room. He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat. The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation, told him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely. I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good night. I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a 'gaudy lie.' For my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day and see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and being on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory, however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out my hand and touched the lever. At that the squat substantial-looking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its instability startled me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an elbow to shake. 'I'm frightfully busy,' said he, 'with that thing in there.' 'But is it not some hoax?' I said. 'Do you really travel through time?' 'Really and truly I do.' And he looked frankly into my eyes. He hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. 'I only want half an hour,' he said. 'I know why you came, and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines here. If you'll stop to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimen and all. If you'll forgive my leaving you now?' I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words, and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper. What was he going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the Time Traveller. As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass for a moment--a figure so transparent that the bench behind with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in. I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened, and the man-servant appeared. We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. 'Has Mr. ---- gone out that way?' said I. 'No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him here.' At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned. EPILOGUE One cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he swept back into the past, and fell among the blood-drinking, hairy savages of the Age of Unpolished Stone; into the abysses of the Cretaceous Sea; or among the grotesque saurians, the huge reptilian brutes of the Jurassic times. He may even now--if I may use the phrase--be wandering on some plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline lakes of the Triassic Age. Or did he go forward, into one of the nearer ages, in which men are still men, but with the riddles of our own time answered and its wearisome problems solved? Into the manhood of the race: for I, for my own part, cannot think that these latter days of weak experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord are indeed man's culminating time! I say, for my own part. He, I know--for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made--thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is still black and blank--is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by the memory of his story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers--shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle--to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.

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