Another World | Page 5

afar off--Picture of swan-vessels and passengers--How
effected--Bottom of the sea rendered visible
XLV.--THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Invaluable--Antipathy to human beings--Hippopotamus' hide--Impervious to
water--Resistance to destroying forces--All parts of the animal utilised--Parts subservient
to the beautiful--Hippopotamus' land--Numerous herds--Their keepers--How attired--The
herb antipathetic to hippopotami--How discovered--Experiment with the young
beast--Antipathetic solution keeps animals away from cities--They love fresh-water
rivers--The Aoe waters prejudicial to man--Mode of rearing Hippopotami--Precautions
adopted--Why they have not been able to rear animal in Western
Europe--Recommendations--Habits of the animal--The hippopotami--dance--How the
young one is separated from the mother--How a hippopotamus is removed from the
herd--The food of the hippopotamus in general
XLVI.--WILD ANIMALS.
The Serpent--The Boa--Professors to examine medicinal and other properties--Modes of
capturing wild beasts--Huntsmen--The iron-work net--The watch-hut--The bait--Dead
animals not allowed in the city--Habits of the tiger--THE TIGER AND THE
CHILD--THE UNICORN
XLVII.--THE SUN.
The palace--Communication with auxiliary tower--Observatory--STAR INSTRUMENT
constructed--Secrets revealed--Inhabitants and atmospheres of the stars differ--Invisible

beings--The SUN-OCEAN, Mountains, and Continents--Winds--Attracted by the
heat--Brilliancy increased by reflection--Every planet has electricity sympathetic or
antipathetic--Different appearance in Montalluyah--Fixed stars--Comets--Overflowings
of the waters--Waters in space--Conclusion

INTRODUCTION.
By introducing the reader to "Another World," the Editor does not lead him into a region
to which the Earth has no affinity. The Planet to which the following fragments refer not
only belongs to the same solar system as our own, but also presents like physical aspects.
In it, as here, are to be found land and water--mountains, rivers, seas, lakes, hills, valleys,
ravines, cataracts alternating with each other; though in consequence of more potent
electrical agencies the contrasts between these various objects are frequently abrupt and
decided to a degree to which we can here offer no comparison. The other world about to
be described is, in fact, essentially another Earth--widely differing, indeed, from ours in
its details, but still subjected to the same natural laws. Its inhabitants, like devout persons
here, look forward with reverent feeling towards the abode of the blest. To a purely
spiritual or angelic region these fragments do not relate.
The name of "Montalluyah," which more immediately belongs to the chief city in the
planet, is not incorrectly extended so as to include the entire sphere. This new world is
not made up of separate countries and mutually independent states like those of the Earth,
but, forming one kingdom, is governed by one supreme Ruler, assisted by twelve kings
inferior to him in rank and power.
The speaker in the fragments (which may almost be said to take the form of an
autobiography) was the son of one of the twelve kings, who by his genius and worth
became "Tootmanyoso," or supreme Ruler. In the planet his name is mentioned with even
more reverence than, by different peoples, is paid to that of Zoroaster, Solon, Lycurgus,
or Alfred; but he has this peculiarity that he does not fade, like many other great
legislators, into mythical indistinctness, but is himself the exponent of his own polity.
It must not, however, be supposed that this great legislator was the first to rescue his
world from mere barbarism. The founder of civilization in Montalluyah seems to have
been a very ancient sage named Elikoia, to whom brief reference is made in the following
pages. Prior to the reign of our Tootmanyoso the people had passed through various
stages of civilization, under the guidance of many wise and good men. Still the polity was
defective, for the country remained subject to crime, misery, and disease.
The proverb that "Prevention is better than cure," to which everybody gives unhesitating
assent, but which is often forgotten in practice, lies at the root of most of the reforms,
both moral and physical, effected by the Tootmanyoso. The policy of prevention--that is,
of destroying maladies of mind and body in the germ, before they had been allowed to
spread their poison--was one of his leading principles. Under his influence, the physicians
of Montalluyah made it less their duty to cure than to prevent disease, therein differing
widely from our practitioners, who are not usually called to exercise their skill until a

malady has been developed, and has perhaps assumed large proportions.
Under his influence likewise it was thought better to diminish moral evil by extirpating
faults in the child, rather than by punishing crimes in the man.
Another prominent feature in the polity of the great Legislator of Montalluyah is the
occupation of every person in the intellectual or physical pursuit for which he has been
fitted by natural qualifications, developed and fortified by culture. Nobility, position, and
wealth are made to depend on merit alone, ascertained by a mechanism which neither
favouritism, ignorance, nor accident can affect. These laws may for an instant seem to
partake of a democratic tinge; but it will be clearly perceived that the regulations
concerning the institutions of property and