Lives of Alcyone

had ever had communication with any humanity on the surface of
the earth it must have been long ago, for their characteristics at this
day differed widely from those of any of the known races.
The utter strangeness of everything daunted the spirits of our
explorers, and although their interest was naturally intense they
often wished that they had never undertaken the adventure. The life
in the midst of which they found themselves was in so many ways
quite incomprehensible to them. The inner voice directed them only
occasionally, and they had no means of obtaining the information on
hundreds of points which they were naturally so eager to acquire.
They were unable to form any opinion as to the nature of the
diffused radiance which filled the vast cavern. The vegetables which
grew in it, and the animals which moved among them, were alike
strange to them. The people seemed to be in many ways what we
should call savages, for they had no visible dwellings of any sort, nor
was it clear that they engaged in any definite work, such for example
as the cultivation of their soil. They appeared to live partly upon the
flesh of certain semi-reptilian animals which they caught, and partly
upon a huge fungoid growth which was exceedingly common, a sort
of gigantic toadstool.
Our adventurers shrank with horror from the reptilian form of
food, which the inhabitants devoured raw—indeed there was nothing
whatever to show that they knew of fire in any of its forms—but
since the stores which our friends had brought with them were
running low, and they had no certainty of being able to replenish
them, they did eat the fungus, and found it to be sustaining, though
far from palatable. It seemed to have a curious exhilarating or
almost intoxicating effects upon their unaccustomed organisms.
77