Chapter VIII: First Explorations

The mossy grass upon which they stepped was of a pale pink colour, indescribably beautiful, while the leaves of the trees were of various tints, though the prevailing colour was a greenish red. Here and there were trees purely green in foliage as on the earth, but these were rather the exception. Of shrub and thicket there was no great profusion, so that even in the woods they could have made their way easily; but they thought it more prudent to skirt the open shores of the lake. Flowers were very scanty, and such as there were did not exhibit either variety or comeliness; but, as the Professor remarked, they were practically in the Arctic circle of Venus and not in any tropical region. The whole landscape seemed very still, for the fierce wind had either died down or was pursuing its course in the upper regions of the mighty atmosphere of Venus. The clouds were grand beyond description, but they did not threaten any outburst of bad weather. The sky was of a paler blue than the earthly sky, and the trailing cloud-belts soared to a much loftier height. Presently they caught sight of several large birds whirling at a vast distance above them; they seemed to be of great size with wide-extended wings. It was not easy to judge of their colour, but they had bills of formidable length; they were soaring away to the plateau of heights that bounded the south, and appeared to be settling upon them.

“This is the first specimen of life we have seen, Professor,” said Radcliffe; “may it prove the herald of that which is nobler and better.”

“Not a trace of it at present,” replied Carmichael; “not a footprint upon the ground, not a mark upon the trees.”

“But I do not see how beings resembling us could get here,” answered Radcliffe, “unless this turns out to be the northern end of a great continent. There is not a place where a ship of any sort or size could disembark anybody. What climber, even if he were a monkey, could mount those stupendous cliffs?”

“Well, now,” said Abercromby, “suppose we have a little chat over probabilities. Don’t you think that it is possible by scientific inference to reason a little as to the people in this planet?”

“How do you propose to start?” said the Professor.

“Is it not a great point, to begin with, that the gravitation force of Venus is the same as ours? On Mars, they tell us, we should be cutting capers every time we put a foot to the ground, while on Jupiter we should be crushed into the very soil and turned into mincemeat.”

“True enough,” said the Professor. “This certainly makes it easier for Venus to be inhabited.”

“Then, again, Venus is younger than the earth, having been evolved from the sun at a later time. May we not argue, then, that we should find its civilised races much less advanced than our own?”

“My dear fellow, your argument bristles over with guesswork. It is not by any means certain that Laplace’s theory about planetary evolution is right, but if it be correct it may prove too much, for we may have arrived here centuries before human life is to begin; and lastly, you cannot argue from one world to another as to the rate at which man advances. Human progress has always been spiral, never in a straight line.”

“There is nothing, so far as I can see, to make life impossible even to us,” observed Radcliffe, “much less to races born and bred upon the planet.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Carmichael. “How would you propose to eat if we had no supplies of our own? I have not seen a single fruit as yet, whether wholesome or the opposite.”

“Look, look, a waterfall!” cried Abercromby, and sure enough, a stream came foaming over a rocky ledge and poured its waters into the lake.

“Lovely, is it not?” he said to Radcliffe.

“Yes! I suppose so,” answered Radcliffe, gazing at it abstractedly.

“Come along, we have seen cascades and falls in our own country,” said the Professor.

They climbed a small hill at the head of the waterfall, at the summit of which they looked down upon a deeper and thicker belt of forest. Just before entering it they saw some white bones lying bleaching upon the ground; the Professor ran to them and picking up one of the largest very carefully examined it. He said it must have belonged to a large animal which he should judge to have been comparatively harmless, but whether it had died or been torn in pieces it was difficult to say.

So much time had now elapsed that it was judged advisable not to proceed further, but to return to the Asteroid, and then take a longer excursion the next time and continue the same line of exploration. The homeward journey was uneventful till they had come within about half a mile, when they were startled by a gunshot which reverberated right across to the southern hills.

“Good gracious! what is the matter?” said Abercromby. “That must be Carysfort. I always tell him his gun goes off even when he is asleep.”

The Professor looked vexed, for he did not want any sport in Venus; he was no sportsman himself, and he was afraid of attracting dangerous animals. However, when they got in sight of the machine they found that Jackson was the culprit, for he coolly told them he had shot a beast in order to cook him for dinner.

“What the dickens did you do it for?” said Abercromby. “The Professor has said he will not take any food off this blessed world, unless the natives ask him in to afternoon tea.”

“Now, sir, don’t be hard; this ’ere is equal to real cooked sucking-pig; you would want to eat him to the tail if he had one.” All the party laughed heartily. The first slaughtered victim on Venus was a spindle-shaped animal with short stuck-up ears long nose, and fawn-coloured skin.

“Well, he is pretty enough, but I shall stick to my resolve,” said the Professor. So they supped upon terrestrial food after all; but, the next morning, Abercromby broke in upon them with the alarming intelligence that a savage must have been prowling around the machine, for he had come upon the dying embers of a fire and the beast had been nearly all devoured. It turned out that the devourer was Jackson, so he had his first Venusian meat in defiance of orders!

* * * * *

The next day at breakfast there was a rather keen dispute amongst the party as to their future plans. Radcliffe and Abercromby wanted to start the machine, soar over the mountains, and at once decide whether human beings were discoverable or not. But, as the engineer had not yet taken a walk in their present neighbourhood, the Professor gave the casting vote in favour of remaining one more day and finishing the exploration of the country. Accordingly the engineer, accompanied by Abercromby and Radcliffe, set out soon after the meal was finished, while the Professor and his servant stayed behind.

It was not till about six o’clock that the travellers came back. They had met with no special adventures till they had reached some caves about half a mile beyond the cascade. There they had been set upon by a wild beast of a most ferocious character, and, had they not been all close together and well armed, they would have come off badly. It took several shots from Carysfort’s gun before the animal was killed. It had surprised Abercromby first, knocked him down, torn his waistcoat, and had fixed its teeth in his shirt, and might have disabled him but for the coat and belt which he was wearing and for the speedy arrival of the others; with a supreme effort Abercromby managed to thrust a knapsack into the creature’s jaws, and, before it had been able to eject this and grind its way through to his flesh, Carysfort had shot it. The animal was something of the nature of a wolf, though there were many differences. They got back to the Asteroid in a rather excited state. Abercromby had spoiled a suit of clothes and had lost his knapsack. There were, of course, relays of clothing in the hold of the Asteroid, for they had taken care to be amply provided with all necessary things.

The engineer was naturally the hero of the occasion, though he modestly disclaimed all praise. Poor Frank had had such a shaking that it was decided to spend yet another day quietly and to put off the final start until the morrow.