Limanora the island of progress
hypnotic suggestion, and constant practice under their tuition,
they soon brought me to see farther afield and more keenly into the
structure of things around me than I had in Europe thought it possible
for the human eye to accomplish. I could perceive with the naked eye
stars that I had been able to see before only through the telescope.
I began to note the changes of tissue underneath the skull of my
neighbours when any great thought or emotion stirred in them, and
could use their wonderful instruments of far and near research with
appreciation. Through these instruments faint stars appeared moons,
and the nearer planets revealed many of the secrets of their surface;
whilst the elements resolved themselves into even simpler constituents.
What still lay beyond I could not imagine, yet there were manifestly
worlds, intensive and extensive, still to be explored beyond the limits
of these aids to sight.
In the life of an individual I could not expect to approach the
development of optic faculty attained by this people. This impressed
itself more deeply upon me when my guardians tried to evolve in me the
magnetic power of eye which every Limanoran had by nature. When any
one of them turned his full glance upon me, it was like encountering
the direct beams of the sun; I had to drop my eyelids in self-defence.
It was this that gave them such hypnotic power over Choktroo and his
followers. Their eye was an active exponent of the soul within as well
as a passive recipient of messages from the world without, and could
concentrate into its glance the energy of their powerful wills. Any
one of these Limanorans amongst the feebler-eyed millions of the rest
of the world would have proved himself a master-spirit. He would, with
his unhesitating will and the magnetism of his eye, have kept masses of
men in check and moulded them into a unity, and the great commanders of
history would have blenched before his gaze.
From the first I had felt uneasy under the full glance of my island
friends, in spite of its kindliness and benevolence. Before I left
England, I had been supposed to have the mesmeric faculty to an
exceptional degree. Now I found it pale before those marvellous
Limanoran eyes, and all the training and physical aid my proparents
could give me in this direction, though they added greatly to my energy
of will and eye, only brought out my hopeless inferiority. I was able
at last to bear their glances with ease, and even to raise my eyes to
theirs for a few seconds; but I ceased to hope for the attainment of
their ocular command or their magnetic power.
Even their passive electric sense was far beyond my possibility in
many of its ramifications. For years I had wondered why their couriers
into far regions of the sky could without any chart or landmarks find
their way back to their island home with such ease. It could not be by
means of vision; for they often went flying above the clouds to the
antipodes; nor could it be by smell; for that sense was not nearly so
much developed as the others. In some of my now more distant flights
with Thyriel I discovered that they homed by the electric sense. It had
become keen in the measurements of amounts of electricity; and every
locality had its own electric possibilities, not to speak of a certain
peculiar quality in its electricity which differentiated it from all
others. One of the most important branches of their education was the
magnetography of the earth and sky. Although I never got beyond a
vague perception of differences in the degrees of electricity, it was
of some use to me in my flights to have learned the elements of this
great descriptive science. I could tell with fair accuracy how high
I was above the earth and whether I was drifting away from Limanora
or towards it; for the amount of electricity in any region varied
within certain definite limits and the conditions governing it were
constant for long periods of time; these were, roughly, the metals
beneath the surface of the earth, the differences in temperature of
the strata of air above, the evaporation and chemical changes on the
earth below, and the periodicity of the influence of the sun and the
stars. Their electric charts of the sky and air were ever in process
of correction, but so slightly and gradually in each region that it
was only after long periods that the Limanoran couriers had to revise
their magnetographic knowledge; indeed it was their reports after long
flights which generally led to the minute corrections of their charts.
It was the work of a few minutes only to learn the new modifications,
for their charts were exact miniature models of that which they were
intended to represent; the learner had only to touch a spring and by
the inner mechanism of the globe out would ray to each point of it
the electricities that in degree and quality belonged to the region
indicated; the member of the electric family who guided him would
explain the changes that had occurred since he last consulted the
instrument, and his own electric sense would tell him the rest.
Nor was this magnetographic training useful merely for the purpose of
pilotage through the heavenly vault. It enabled any courier to seek the
region where he would most easily recharge the little engines which he
bore with him under his arms to aid in his wing journey. Although he
could prevent the complete exhaustion of these power auxiliaries by
supplying them with some of the magnetism in his own body, it was only
in emergencies that he did this; for his own system needed electric
recuperation as well. Whenever this was required, he made for some
region of the air that he knew to be highly electric; and there he
floated, whilst with his receptive sense he drew in new stores for his
own system and for his little armpit engines. Then he went on his way
rejoicing, exhilarated by his new energy. One of the purposes of their
frequent flight into atmospheric spheres other than their own was to
drink in new magnetism from one of the great sky fountains.
When a Limanoran returned from an aërial flight there was renewed life
in him. His eyes glowed with a heightened radiancy; I could see a soft
light play about them in the dark, and this, if needed, he could make
even piercing in its brilliancy. He required no light to guide him in
the deepest night. His electric sense gathered in from the atmosphere
the scattered radiance that was hidden from my sight; and from his
eyes he could emit this electricity in the form of light. For me, who,
under all their training, was never able to develop such power over
the unseen forces of the air, the eyes of Thyriel were a guide in
our flight through the night sky; and by day so gentle a brilliance
played around them it was little wonder they fascinated and drew me
ever to them. After experiencing their power, I was not surprised at
the hypnotic influence Limanoran eyes had had over the leaders of the
hostile expedition.
It did not astonish me to find that by means of their electric energy
they could move vast masses which no mere muscular force could have
touched. I had a constitution that seemed to be physically far stronger
than Thyriel’s; yet, if she had time to reinforce her store of
magnetism, she could accomplish feats of strength I could not approach.
In her fragile system there seemed to reside a giant’s energy; but this
was only at times, and especially after she had made some long journey
into the regions of the air. The tissues and fibres of her body seemed
to grow tenfold stronger when the new electric energy tingled along
her nerves. In only the faintest way was I ever able to develop my
electric-receptive sense so far as to realise what a new store meant to
their physical powers.
Yet my guardians set themselves to bring out my latent electric sense
or firla. After much practice and the application of many stimuli I
began to feel impulses more keenly even when they came from a distance:
the back of my neck grew more and more sensitive, so that I would
wheel round instinctively when anyone looked at me from behind. There
was almost hope that I should, after many years’ practice, come to
distinguish the different kinds of emotion with which anyone, though
unseen, might look at me; and I could produce by a concentration of
will-force in the eyes a certain luminosity, noticeable when I stood in
deep darkness.
My power of sight was greatly strengthened by this new electric
faculty that the eyes acquired. I began to raise my eyelids before the
penetrative glance of a Limanoran, or even the full majesty of the
sun; but never could I hope to reach their analytic power of vision.
Their senses were distinguished from those of the rest of mankind by
intellectuality, and were, I thought, not merely the observers and
reporters of the mind, but its outlying parts or functions. The eye
especially seemed to do what through its means reason and experiment
might have done. At a glance a Limanoran would tell to an inch the
distance of any object, and was not far wrong in his estimate of
the space between the earth and any star when its rays reached his
eye. He could distinguish one ray from another by its colour or
colour-constituents and by its magnetic affinities. What he had learned
in the use of the inamar or spectroscope in the lava wells and in
the fusion of metals in Rimla had come to be a visual instinct. With
scarcely a minute’s hesitation he would tell the predominant elements
in any one of the heavenly bodies. Doubtless the firla had something to
do with this analytic power. One of their imaginative pioneering books
held out the by no means remote possibility of catching symptoms of the
life which, they knew well, filled the dim worlds above.
Their auditory powers had been far less developed than their visual,
and gave but faint hope of transcending interstellar space, and
my training soon brought me within easy distance of their hearing
capacity. The range of this faculty both at its upper and its lower
limit had been considerably extended. Sounds dangerous on account of
their loudness to the inner mechanism of ordinary ears were by means
partly of strengthening the protective cartilages and partly of a
trevamolan or graduated modifier of sound, which they constantly wore,
made harmless and even gentle and enjoyable. Those that were too faint
to reach any human ear became audible to me after some training in the
use of their vamolans or makro-mikrakousts. So greatly had these been
improved along with the power of hearing that they could discriminate
the different noises of microscopic life. These vamolans in their
application of electricity to hearing could make the buzzing of an
insect sound like the roar of thunder. By modifications of them any of
the sounds heard through them could be recorded for ever.
Thus had been formed a library and museum of the phonology of animal
life. They had been able to study the records of sounds emitted by
the various species of animals and had come to know the meaning of
each sound before they had driven all but microscopic life from the
island; thus they had learned by means of the recording vamolans the
language of animals. The birds of the air I have seen follow the cries
of Thyriel, gathering around her in clouds, as she flew, until by a
sudden change of tone she would scatter the fluttering masses to the
four winds. Even the fish of the sea would rise and leap above the
waves to her notes; ferocious, devouring monsters would leave their
prey and follow gently in her train. Most of this power over the
undeveloped creation was due to the record and study of their cries;
but not all. The magnetism of her personality had a strange effect upon
the wildest birds of prey: it seemed to bear with it tacitly the lesson