Chapter IX.
It was not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if
they are to be so called, my mind became better prepared to
interchange ideas with my entertainers, and more fully to
comprehend differences of manners and customs, at first too
strange to my experience to be seized by my reason, that I was
enabled to gather the following details respecting the origin
and history of the subterranean population, as portion of one
great family race called the Ana.
According to the earliest traditions, the remote progenitors of
the race had once tenanted a world above the surface of that in
which their descendants dwelt. Myths of that world were still
preserved in their archives, and in those myths were legends of
a vaulted dome in which the lamps were lighted by no human
hand. But such legends were considered by most commentators as
allegorical fables. According to these traditions the earth
32itself, at the date to which the traditions ascend, was not
indeed in its infancy, but in the throes and travail of
transition from one form of development to another, and subject
to many violent revolutions of nature. By one of such
revolutions, that portion of the upper world inhabited by the
ancestors of this race had been subjected to inundations, not
rapid, but gradual and uncontrollable, in which all, save a
scanty remnant, were submerged and perished. Whether this be a
record of our historical and sacred Deluge, or of some earlier
one contended for by geologists, I do not pretend to
conjecture; though, according to the chronology of this people
as compared with that of Newton, it must have been many
thousands of years before the time of Noah. On the other hand,
the account of these writers does not harmonise with the
opinions most in vogue among geological authorities, inasmuch
as it places the existence of a human race upon earth at dates
long anterior to that assigned to the terrestrial formation
adapted to the introduction of mammalia. A band of the
ill-fated race, thus invaded by the Flood, had, during the
march of the waters, taken refuge in caverns amidst the loftier
rocks, and, wandering through these hollows, they lost sight of
the upper world forever. Indeed, the whole face of the earth
had been changed by this great revulsion; land had been turned
into 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 of human habitation- habitation not in
huts and caverns, but in vast cities whose ruins attest the
civilisation of races which flourished before the age of Noah,
and are not to be classified with those genera to which
philosophy ascribes the use of flint and the ignorance of iron.
The fugitives had carried with them the knowledge of the arts
they had practised above ground- arts of culture and
civilisation. Their earliest want must have been that of
supplying below the earth the light they had lost above it; and
at no time, even in the traditional period, do the races, of
which the one I now sojourned with formed a tribe, seem to have
33been unacquainted with the art of extracting light from gases,
or manganese, or petroleum. They had been accustomed in their
former state to contend with the rude forces of nature; and
indeed the lengthened battle they had fought with their
conqueror Ocean, which had taken centuries in its spread, had
quickened their skill in curbing waters into dikes and channels.
To this skill they owed their preservation in their new abode.
"For many generations," said my host, with a sort of contempt
and horror, "these primitive forefathers are said to have
degraded their rank and shortened their lives by eating the
flesh of animals, many varieties of which had, like themselves,
escaped the Deluge, and sought shelter in the hollows of the
earth; other animals, supposed to be unknown to the upper world,
those hollows themselves produced."
When what we should term the historical age emerged from the
twilight of tradition, the Ana were already established in
different communities, and had attained to a degree of
civilisation very analogous to that which the more advanced
nations above the earth now enjoy. They were familiar with
most of our mechanical inventions, including the application of
steam as well as gas. The communities were in fierce
competition with each other. They had their rich and their
poor; they had orators and conquerors; they made war either for
a domain or an idea. Though the various states acknowledged
various forms of government, free institutions were beginning
to preponderate; popular assemblies increased in power;
republics soon became general; the democracy to which the most
enlightened European politicians look forward as the extreme
goal of political advancement, and which still prevailed among
other subterranean races, whom they despised as barbarians, the
loftier family of Ana, to which belonged the tribe I was
visiting, looked back to as one of the crude and ignorant
experiments which belong to the infancy of political science.
It was the age of envy and hate, of fierce passions, of
34constant social changes more or less violent, of strife between
classes, of war between state and state. This phase of society
lasted, however, for some ages, and was finally brought to a
close, at least among the nobler and more intellectual
populations, by the gradual discovery of the latent powers
stored in the all-permeating fluid which they denominate Vril.
According to the account I received from Zee, who, as an
erudite professor of the College of Sages, had studied such
matters more diligently than any other member of my host's
family, this fluid is capable of being raised and disciplined
into the mightiest agency over all forms of matter, animate or
inanimate. It can destroy like the flash of lightning; yet,
differently applied, it can replenish or invigorate life, heal,
and preserve, and on it they chiefly rely for the cure of
disease, or rather for enabling the physical organisation to
re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and
thereby to cure itself. By this agency they rend way through
the most solid substances, and open valleys for culture through
the rocks of their subterranean wilderness. From it they
extract the light which supplies their lamps, finding it
steadier, softer, and healthier than the other inflammable
materials they had formerly used.
But the effects of the alleged discovery of the means to direct
the more terrible force of vril were chiefly remarkable in
their influence upon social polity. As these effects became
familiarly known and skillfully administered, war between the
vril-discoverers ceased, for they brought the art of
destruction to such perfection as to annul all superiority in
numbers, discipline, or military skill. The fire lodged in the
hollow of a rod directed by the hand of a child could shatter
the strongest fortress, or cleave its burning way from the van
to the rear of an embattled 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 was therefore gone, but with the
35cessation of war other effects bearing upon the social state
soon became apparent. Man was so completely at the mercy of
man, each whom he encountered being able, if so willing, to
slay him on the instant, that all notions of government by
force gradually vanished from political systems and forms of
law. It is only by force that vast communities, dispersed
through great distances of space, can be kept together; but now
there was no longer either the necessity of self-preservation
or the pride of aggrandisement to make one 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
amongst which I had fallen was limited to 12,000 families.
Each tribe occupied a territory sufficient for all its wants,
and at stated periods the surplus population departed to seek a
realm of its own. There appeared no necessity for any
arbitrary selection of these emigrants; there was always a
sufficient number who volunteered to depart.
These subdivided states, petty if we regard either territory or
population,- all appertained to one vast general family. They
spoke the same language, though the dialects might slightly
differ. They intermarried; They maintained the same general
laws and customs; and so important a bond between these several
communities was the knowledge of vril and the practice of its
agencies, that the word A-Vril was synonymous with
civilisation; and Vril-ya, signifying "The Civilised Nations,"
was the common name by which the communities employing the uses
of vril distinguished themselves from such of the Ana as were
yet in a state of barbarism.
The government of the tribe of Vril-ya I am treating of was
apparently very complicated, really very simple. It was based
upon a principle recognised in theory, though little carried
out in practice, above ground- viz., that the object of all
systems of philosophical thought tends to the attainment of
unity, or the ascent through all intervening labyrinths to the
simplicity of a single first cause or principle. Thus in
36politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolent
autocracy would insure the best administration, if there were
any guarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual
abuse of the powers accorded to it. This singular community
elected therefore a single supreme magistrate styled Tur; he
held his office nominally for life, but he could seldom be
induced to retain it after the first approach of old age.
There was indeed in this society nothing to induce any of its
members to covet the cares of office. No honours, no insignia
of higher rank, were assigned to it. The supreme magistrate
was not distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or
revenue. On the other hand, the duties awarded to him were
marvellously light and easy, requiring no preponderant degree
of energy or intelligence. There being no apprehensions of
war, there were no armies to maintain; there being no
government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct.
What we call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya; and
there were no courts of criminal justice. The rare instances
of civil disputes were referred for arbitration to friends
chosen by either party, or decided by the Council of Sages,
which will be described later. There were no professional
lawyers; and indeed their laws were but amicable conventions,
for there was no power to enforce laws against an offender who
carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges. There
were customs and regulations to compliance with which, for
several ages, the people had tacitly habituated themselves; or
if in any instance an individual felt such compliance hard, he
quitted the community and went elsewhere. There was, in fact,
quietly established amid this state, much the same compact that
is found in our private families, in which we virtually say to
any independent grown-up member of the family whom we receive
to entertain, "Stay or go, according as our habits and
regulations suit or displease you." But though there were no
laws such as we call laws, no race above ground is so
37law-observing. Obedience to the rule adopted by the community
has become as much an instinct as if it were implanted by
nature. Even in every household the head of it makes a
regulation for its guidance, which is never resisted nor even
cavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a
proverb, the pithiness of which is much lost in this
paraphrase, "No happiness without order, no order without
authority, no authority without unity." The mildness of all
government among them, civil or domestic, may be signalised by
their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or
forbidden- viz., "It is requested not to do so and so." Poverty
among the Ana is as unknown as crime; not that property is held
in common, or that all are equals in the extent of their
possessions or the size and luxury of their habitations: but
there being no difference of rank or position between the
grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, each pursues his
own inclinations without creating envy or vying; some like a
modest, some a more splendid kind of life; each makes himself
happy in his own way. Owing to this absence of competition,
and the limit placed on the population, it is difficult for a
family to fall into distress; there are no hazardous
speculations, no emulators striving for superior wealth and
rank. No doubt, in each settlement all originally had the same
proportions of land dealt out to them; but some, more
adventurous than others, had extended their possessions farther
into the bordering wilds, or had improved into richer fertility
the produce of their fields, or entered into commerce or trade.
Thus, necessarily, some had grown richer than others, but none
had become absolutely poor, or wanting anything which their
tastes desired. If they did so, it was always in their power
to migrate, or at the worst to apply, without shame and with
certainty of aid, to the rich, for all the members of the
community considered themselves as brothers of one affectionate
and united family. More upon this head will be treated of
incidentally as my narrative proceeds.
38
The chief care of the supreme magistrate was to communicate
with certain active departments charged with the administration
of special details. The most important and essential of such
details was that connected with the due provision of light. Of
this department my host, Aph-Lin, was the chief. Another
department, which might be called the foreign, communicated
with the neighbouring kindred states, principally for the
purpose of ascertaining all new inventions; and to a third
department all such inventions and improvements in machinery
were committed for trial. Connected with this department was
the College of Sages- a college especially favoured by such of
the Ana as were widowed and childless, and by the young
unmarried females, amongst whom Zee was the most active, and,
if what we call renown or distinction was a thing acknowledged
by this people (which I shall later show it is not), among the
more renowned or distinguished. It is by the female Professors
of this College that those studies which are deemed of least
use in practical life- as purely speculative philosophy, the
history of remote periods, and such sciences as entomology,
conchology, &c.- are the more diligently cultivated. Zee,
whose mind, active as Aristotle's, equally embraced the largest
domains and the minutest details of thought, had written two
volumes on the parasite insect that dwells amid the hairs of a
tiger's* paw, which work was considered the best authority on
that interesting subject.
* The animal here referred to has many points of difference from
the tiger of the upper world. It is larger, and with a broader
paw, and still more receding frontal. It haunts the side of lakes
and pools, and feeds principally on fishes, though it does not
object to any terrestrial animal of inferior strength that comes in
its way. It is becoming very scarce even in the wild districts,
where it is devoured by gigantic reptiles. I apprehended that it
clearly belongs to the tiger species, since the parasite animalcule
found in its paw, like that in the Asiatic tiger, is a miniature
image of itself.
But the researches of the sages are not confined to such subtle
or elegant studies. They comprise various others more
39important, and especially the properties of vril, to the
perception of which their finer nervous organisation renders
the female Professors eminently keen. It is out of this
college that the Tur, or chief magistrate, selects Councillors,
limited to three, in the rare instances in which novelty of
event or circumstance perplexes his own judgment.
There are a few other departments of minor consequence, but all
are carried on so noiselessly, and quietly that the evidence of
a government seems to vanish altogether, and social order to be
as regular and unobtrusive as if it were a law of nature.
Machinery is employed to an inconceivable extent in all the
operations of labour within and without doors, and it is the
unceasing object of the department charged with its
administration to extend its efficiency. There is no class of
labourers or servants, but all who are required to assist or
control the machinery are found in the children, from the time
they leave the care of their mothers to the marriageable age,
which they place at sixteen for the Gy-ei (the females), twenty
for the Ana (the males). These children are formed into bands
and sections under their own chiefs, each following the
pursuits in which he is most pleased, or for which he feels
himself most fitted. Some take to handicrafts, some to
agriculture, some to household work, and some to the only
services of danger to which the population is exposed; for the
sole perils that threaten this tribe are, first, from those
occasional convulsions within the earth, to foresee and guard
against which tasks their utmost ingenuity- irruptions of fire
and water, the storms of subterranean winds and escaping gases.
At the borders of the domain, and at all places where such
peril might be apprehended, vigilant inspectors are stationed
with telegraphic communications to the hall in which chosen
sages take it by turns to hold perpetual sittings. These
inspectors are always selected from the elder boys approaching
the age of puberty, and on the principle that at that age
observation is more acute and the physical forces more alert
than at any other. The second service of danger, less grave,
40is in the destruction of all creatures hostile to the life, or
the culture, or even the comfort, of the Ana. Of these the
most formidable are the vast reptiles, of some of which
antediluvian relics are preserved in our museums, and certain
gigantic winged creatures, half bird, half reptile. These,
together with lesser wild animals, corresponding to our tigers
or venomous serpents, it is left to the younger children to
hunt and destroy; because, according to the Ana, here
ruthlessness is wanted, and the younger the child the more
ruthlessly he will destroy. There is another class of animals
in the destruction of which discrimination is to be used, and
against which children of intermediate age are appointed-
animals that do not threaten the life of man, but ravage the
produce of his labour, varieties of the elk and deer species,
and a smaller creature much akin to our rabbit, though
infinitely more destructive to crops, and much more cunning in
its mode of depredation. It is the first object of these
appointed infants, to tame the more intelligent of such animals
into respect for enclosures signalised by conspicuous
landmarks, as dogs are taught to respect a larder, or even to
guard the master's property. It is only where such creatures
are found untamable to this extent that they are destroyed.
Life is never taken away for food or for sport, and never
spared where untamably inimical to the Ana. Concomitantly with
these bodily services and tasks, the mental education of the
children goes on till boyhood ceases. It is the general custom,
then, to pass though a course of instruction at the College of
Sages, in which, besides more general studies, the pupil receives
special lessons in such vocation or direction of intellect as he
himself selects. Some, however, prefer to pass this period of
probation in travel, or to emigrate, or to settle down at once
into rural or commercial pursuits. No force is put upon
individual inclination.
