"Do you think it advisable to go further to-day, Doctor?" asked Graham.
"Well, now we are up so high it will certainly be best to do as much surveying as possible, and then we can discuss our position and future movements to-night. Put us up a few more thousand feet, Graham, so that we may clear these mountains and see what the country is like beyond them."
The scene from above the mountain range was indescribably beautiful. We looked down upon lofty snow-capped peaks, romantic valleys, leaping waterfalls, and slumbering lakes; upon wild and lonely plateaux, glaciers, and snow-fields; upon steep cliffs, gentle slopes, cone-shaped summits, and others like unto pyramids, pinnacles, or spires. We went right over the yawning crater, and looked down into the smoke and fire which rose gently from its hidden depths, now calm and peaceful as a sleeping child. We saw the birthplace of rivers, high up the hillsides, and could trace them from their source to the distant ocean; we noticed the various belts of vegetation growing on the mountain slopes from the lake to the snow-line--but we saw no trace of anything shaped and fashioned as ourselves! Higher and higher we rose, and at last the country to the westward, or behind the mountains, gradually came into view. It was even more charmingly beautiful than the country we had just left behind us--more level, more wooded, better watered, and parts of it apparently under cultivation! Our hearts beat fast within us as we saw what looked like vast enclosures, with long, winding canals running through them; and even more excited still did we become when we distinctly made out a colossal bridge which spanned a deep valley between two hills.
"There! there are the signs of a higher intelligence at last; the brute creation does not reign supreme, as we feared," said Temple, bursting into tears, and unable to control his feelings longer.
Graham waxed eloquent over the engineering qualities of the bridge, the enormous width of its span making the mightiest bridges of Earth seem but as toys in comparison.
We were too far away (quite thirty miles) to see much detail, but we could distinguish, as Temple spoke, two vast cities, one on either hill, joined together by the bridge, with palaces and halls and lofty towers, apparently of white marble, glistening in the rays of the setting sun. Upon seeing this wonderful city, Doctor Hermann very wisely gave the word to descend as quickly as possible, in case we might be observed. In five minutes we were safe on the ground again, the _Sirius_ snugly hidden in a beautiful grove of trees and underwood on the banks of a stream, in a spot where we should at all events be able to retreat and readily conceal ourselves in case of emergency.