Chapter IX.
It was not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if they are tobe so called, my mind became better prepared to interchange ideas withmy entertainers, and more fully to comprehend differences of mannersand customs, at first too strange to my experience to be seized by myreason, that I was enabled to gather the following details respectingthe origin and history of the subterranean population, as portion of onegreat family race called the Ana.
According to the earliest traditions, the remote progenitors of therace had once tenanted a world above the surface of that in which theirdescendants dwelt. Myths of that world were still preserved in theirarchives, and in those myths were legends of a vaulted dome in which thelamps were lighted by no human hand. But such legends were considered bymost commentators as allegorical fables. According to these traditionsthe earth itself, at the date to which the traditions ascend, was notindeed in its infancy, but in the throes and travail of transitionfrom one form of development to another, and subject to many violentrevolutions of nature. By one of such revolutions, that portion of theupper world inhabited by the ancestors of this race had been subjectedto inundations, not rapid, but gradual and uncontrollable, in which all,save a scanty remnant, were submerged and perished. Whether this bea record of our historical and sacred Deluge, or of some earlier onecontended for by geologists, I do not pretend to conjecture; though,according to the chronology of this people as compared with that ofNewton, it must have been many thousands of years before the time ofNoah. On the other hand, the account of these writers does not harmonisewith the opinions most in vogue among geological authorities, inasmuchas it places the existence of a human race upon earth at dates longanterior to that assigned to the terrestrial formation adapted to theintroduction of mammalia. A band of the ill-fated race, thus invaded bythe Flood, had, during the march of the waters, taken refuge in cavernsamidst the loftier rocks, and, wandering through these hollows, theylost sight of the upper world forever. Indeed, the whole face of theearth had been changed by this great revulsion; land had been turnedinto sea--sea into land. In the bowels of the inner earth, even now,I was informed as a positive fact, might be discovered the remains ofhuman habitation--habitation not in huts and caverns, but in vast citieswhose ruins attest the civilisation of races which flourished beforethe age of Noah, and are not to be classified with those genera to whichphilosophy ascribes the use of flint and the ignorance of iron.
The fugitives had carried with them the knowledge of the arts they hadpractised above ground--arts of culture and civilisation. Their earliestwant must have been that of supplying below the earth the light they hadlost above it; and at no time, even in the traditional period, do theraces, of which the one I now sojourned with formed a tribe, seem tohave been unacquainted with the art of extracting light from gases, ormanganese, or petroleum. They had been accustomed in their former stateto contend with the rude forces of nature; and indeed the lengthenedbattle they had fought with their conqueror Ocean, which had takencenturies in its spread, had quickened their skill in curbing watersinto dikes and channels. To this skill they owed their preservation intheir new abode. "For many generations," said my host, with a sortof contempt and horror, "these primitive forefathers are said to havedegraded their rank and shortened their lives by eating the flesh ofanimals, many varieties of which had, like themselves, escaped theDeluge, and sought shelter in the hollows of the earth; other animals,supposed to be unknown to the upper world, those hollows themselvesproduced."
When what we should term the historical age emerged from the twilightof tradition, the Ana were already established in different communities,and had attained to a degree of civilisation very analogous to thatwhich the more advanced nations above the earth now enjoy. Theywere familiar with most of our mechanical inventions, including theapplication of steam as well as gas. The communities were in fiercecompetition with each other. They had their rich and their poor; theyhad orators and conquerors; they made war either for a domain oran idea. Though the various states acknowledged various forms ofgovernment, free institutions were beginning to preponderate; popularassemblies increased in power; republics soon became general; thedemocracy to which the most enlightened European politicians lookforward as the extreme goal of political advancement, and whichstill prevailed among other subterranean races, whom they despised asbarbarians, the loftier family of Ana, to which belonged the tribe I wasvisiting, looked back to as one of the crude and ignorant experimentswhich belong to the infancy of political science. It was the age of envyand hate, of fierce passions, of constant social changes more or lessviolent, of strife between classes, of war between state and state. Thisphase of society lasted, however, for some ages, and was finally broughtto a close, at least among the nobler and more intellectualpopulations, by the gradual discovery of the latent powers stored in theall-permeating fluid which they denominate Vril.
According to the account I received from Zee, who, as an eruditeprofessor of the College of Sages, had studied such matters morediligently than any other member of my host's family, this fluid iscapable of being raised and disciplined into the mightiest agency overall forms of matter, animate or inanimate. It can destroy like the flashof lightning; yet, differently applied, it can replenish or invigoratelife, heal, and preserve, and on it they chiefly rely for the cureof disease, or rather for enabling the physical organisation tore-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and therebyto cure itself. By this agency they rend way through the most solidsubstances, and open valleys for culture through the rocks of theirsubterranean wilderness. From it they extract the light which suppliestheir lamps, finding it steadier, softer, and healthier than the otherinflammable materials they had formerly used.
But the effects of the alleged discovery of the means to direct the moreterrible force of vril were chiefly remarkable in their influence uponsocial polity. As these effects became familiarly known and skillfullyadministered, war between the vril-discoverers ceased, for they broughtthe art of destruction to such perfection as to annul all superiority innumbers, discipline, or military skill. The fire lodged in the hollowof a rod directed by the hand of a child could shatter the strongestfortress, or cleave its burning way from the van to the rear of anembattled host. If army met army, and both had command of this agency,it could be but to the annihilation of each. The age of war wastherefore gone, but with the cessation of war other effects bearingupon the social state soon became apparent. Man was so completely atthe mercy of man, each whom he encountered being able, if so willing,to slay him on the instant, that all notions of government by forcegradually vanished from political systems and forms of law. It is onlyby force that vast communities, dispersed through great distances ofspace, can be kept together; but now there was no longer either thenecessity of self-preservation or the pride of aggrandisement to makeone state desire to preponderate in population over another.
The Vril-discoverers thus, in the course of a few generations,peacefully split into communities of moderate size. The tribe amongstwhich I had fallen was limited to 12,000 families. Each tribe occupieda territory sufficient for all its wants, and at stated periods thesurplus population departed to seek a realm of its own. There appearedno necessity for any arbitrary selection of these emigrants; there wasalways a sufficient number who volunteered to depart.
These subdivided states, petty if we regard either territory orpopulation,--all appertained to one vast general family. They spokethe same language, though the dialects might slightly differ. Theyintermarried; They maintained the same general laws and customs; and soimportant a bond between these several communities was the knowledgeof vril and the practice of its agencies, that the word A-Vril wassynonymous with civilisation; and Vril-ya, signifying "The CivilisedNations," was the common name by which the communities employing theuses of vril distinguished themselves from such of the Ana as were yetin a state of barbarism.
The government of the tribe of Vril-ya I am treating of was apparentlyvery complicated, really very
simple. It was based upon a principlerecognised in theory, though little carried out in practice, aboveground--viz., that the object of all systems of philosophical thoughttends to the attainment of unity, or the ascent through all interveninglabyrinths to the simplicity of a single first cause or principle.Thus in politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolentautocracy would insure the best administration, if there were anyguarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual abuse of thepowers accorded to it. This singular community elected therefore asingle supreme magistrate styled Tur; he held his office nominallyfor life, but he could seldom be induced to retain it after the firstapproach of old age. There was indeed in this society nothing to induceany of its members to covet the cares of office. No honours, no insigniaof higher rank, were assigned to it. The supreme magistrate was notdistinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue. On theother hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy,requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence. There beingno apprehensions of war, there were no armies to maintain; there beingno government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct. Whatwe call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya; and there were nocourts of criminal justice. The rare instances of civil disputes werereferred for arbitration to friends chosen by either party, or decidedby the Council of Sages, which will be described later. There wereno professional lawyers; and indeed their laws were but amicableconventions, for there was no power to enforce laws against an offenderwho carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges. There werecustoms and regulations to compliance with which, for several ages,the people had tacitly habituated themselves; or if in any instance anindividual felt such compliance hard, he quitted the community and wentelsewhere. There was, in fact, quietly established amid this state,much the same compact that is found in our private families, in which wevirtually say to any independent grown-up member of the family whomwe receive to entertain, "Stay or go, according as our habits andregulations suit or displease you." But though there were no laws suchas we call laws, no race above ground is so law-observing. Obedience tothe rule adopted by the community has become as much an instinct asif it were implanted by nature. Even in every household the head of itmakes a regulation for its guidance, which is never resisted nor evencavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a proverb,the pithiness of which is much lost in this paraphrase, "No happinesswithout order, no order without authority, no authority without unity."The mildness of all government among them, civil or domestic, may besignalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal orforbidden--viz., "It is requested not to do so and so." Poverty amongthe Ana is as unknown as crime; not that property is held in common, orthat all are equals in the extent of their possessions or the size andluxury of their habitations: but there being no difference of rank orposition between the grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, eachpursues his own inclinations without creating envy or vying; some likea modest, some a more splendid kind of life; each makes himself happy inhis own way. Owing to this absence of competition, and the limit placedon the population, it is difficult for a family to fall into distress;there are no hazardous speculations, no emulators striving for superiorwealth and rank. No doubt, in each settlement all originally had thesame proportions of land dealt out to them; but some, more adventurousthan others, had extended their possessions farther into the borderingwilds, or had improved into richer fertility the produce of theirfields, or entered into commerce or trade. Thus, necessarily, somehad grown richer than others, but none had become absolutely poor, orwanting anything which their tastes desired. If they did so, it wasalways in their power to migrate, or at the worst to apply, withoutshame and with certainty of aid, to the rich, for all the members ofthe community considered themselves as brothers of one affectionate andunited family. More upon this head will be treated of incidentally as mynarrative proceeds.
The chief care of the supreme magistrate was to communicate with certainactive departments charged with the administration of special details.The most important and essential of such details was that connected withthe due provision of light. Of this department my host, Aph-Lin, wasthe chief. Another department, which might be called the foreign,communicated with the neighbouring kindred states, principally for thepurpose of ascertaining all new inventions; and to a third departmentall such inventions and improvements in machinery were committed fortrial. Connected with this department was the College of Sages--acollege especially favoured by such of the Ana as were widowed andchildless, and by the young unmarried females, amongst whom Zee wasthe most active, and, if what we call renown or distinction was a thingacknowledged by this people (which I shall later show it is not), amongthe more renowned or distinguished. It is by the female Professorsof this College that those studies which are deemed of least use inpractical life--as purely speculative philosophy, the history of remoteperiods, and such sciences as entomology, conchology, &c.--are the morediligently cultivated. Zee, whose mind, active as Aristotle's, equallyembraced the largest domains and the minutest details of thought, hadwritten two volumes on the parasite insect that dwells amid the hairsof a tiger's* paw, which work was considered the best authority on thatinteresting subject.
* The animal here referred to has many points of difference from thetiger of the upper world. It is larger, and with a broader paw, andstill more receding frontal. It haunts the side of lakes and pools,and feeds principally on fishes, though it does not object to anyterrestrial animal of inferior strength that comes in its way. It isbecoming very scarce even in the wild districts, where it is devouredby gigantic reptiles. I apprehended that it clearly belongs to the tigerspecies, since the parasite animalcule found in its paw, like that inthe Asiatic tiger, is a miniature image of itself.
But the researches of the sages are not confined to such subtle orelegant studies. They comprise various others more important, andespecially the properties of vril, to the perception of which theirfiner nervous organisation renders the female Professors eminently keen.It is out of this college that the Tur, or chief magistrate, selectsCouncillors, limited to three, in the rare instances in which novelty ofevent or circumstance perplexes his own judgment.
There are a few other departments of minor consequence, but all arecarried on so noiselessly, and quietly that the evidence of a governmentseems to vanish altogether, and social order to be as regular andunobtrusive as if it were a law of nature. Machinery is employed to aninconceivable extent in all the operations of labour within and withoutdoors, and it is the unceasing object of the department charged with itsadministration to extend its efficiency. There is no class of labourersor servants, but all who are required to assist or control the machineryare found in the children, from the time they leave the care of theirmothers to the marriageable age, which they place at sixteen for theGy-ei (the females), twenty for the Ana (the males). These children areformed into bands and sections under their own chiefs, each followingthe pursuits in which he is most pleased, or for which he feels himselfmost fitted. Some take to handicrafts, some to agriculture, some tohousehold work, and some to the only services of danger to which thepopulation is exposed; for the sole perils that threaten this tribe are,first, from those occasional convulsions within the earth, to foreseeand guard against which tasks their utmost ingenuity--irruptions of fireand water, the storms of subterranean winds and escaping gases. Atthe borders of the domain, and at all places where such peril mightbe apprehended, vigilant inspectors are stationed with telegraphiccommunications to the hall in which chosen sages take it by turns tohold perpetual sittings. These inspectors are always selected from theelder boys approaching the age of puberty, and on the principle that atthat age observation is more acute and the physical forces more alertthan at any other. The second service of danger, less grave, is in thedestruction of all creatures hostile to the life, or the culture, oreven the comfort, of the Ana. Of these the most formidable are the vastreptiles, of some of which antediluvian relics are preser
ved in ourmuseums, and certain gigantic winged creatures, half bird, half reptile.These, together with lesser wild animals, corresponding to our tigersor venomous serpents, it is left to the younger children to hunt anddestroy; because, according to the Ana, here ruthlessness is wanted,and the younger the child the more ruthlessly he will destroy. There isanother class of animals in the destruction of which discriminationis to be used, and against which children of intermediate age areappointed--animals that do not threaten the life of man, but ravage theproduce of his labour, varieties of the elk and deer species, anda smaller creature much akin to our rabbit, though infinitely moredestructive to crops, and much more cunning in its mode of depredation.It is the first object of these appointed infants, to tame the moreintelligent of such animals into respect for enclosures signalised byconspicuous landmarks, as dogs are taught to respect a larder, or evento guard the master's property. It is only where such creatures arefound untamable to this extent that they are destroyed. Life is nevertaken away for food or for sport, and never spared where untamablyinimical to the Ana. Concomitantly with these bodily services and tasks,the mental education of the children goes on till boyhood ceases. It isthe general custom, then, to pass though a course of instruction atthe College of Sages, in which, besides more general studies, the pupilreceives special lessons in such vocation or direction of intellectas he himself selects. Some, however, prefer to pass this period ofprobation in travel, or to emigrate, or to settle down at onceinto rural or commercial pursuits. No force is put upon individualinclination.