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S I M P L Y
ASTRONOMY
 About this ePub
Due to the complex integration of images
and text, this DK ePub has been formatted
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DK LONDON
Senior Editor Peter Frances
Senior Art Editor Phil Gamble
Project Art Editor Jessica Tapolcai
Editorial Assistant Michael Clark
Managing Editor Angeles Gavira Guererro
Managing Art Editor Michael Duffy
Production Editor George Nimmo
Production Controller Laura Andrews
Jacket Designer Akiko Kato
Associate Publishing Director Liz Wheeler
Art Director Karen Self
Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf
EDITORIAL CONSULTANT
Dr Jacqueline Mitton is the author,
co-author, or editor of more than 30
books on astronomy, including books
for adults and children. After studying
physics at Oxford University, she
gained a PhD at Cambridge University.
CONTRIBUTORS
Abigail Beall studied physics at
Durham University and is a science
journalist and author. She regularly
writes and talks about astronomy and
stargazing in magazine columns and
on radio.

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by
Dorling Kindersley Limited
DK, One Embassy Gardens, 8 Viaduct Gardens,
London SW11 7BW
The authorized representative in the EEA is
Dorling Kindersley Verlag GmbH. Arnulfstr. 124,
80636 Munich, Germany.
Copyright © 2021 Dorling Kindersley Limited
A Penguin Random House Company
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
001–319160–Nov/2021
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise), without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner.
Philip Eales studied physics and
remote sensing at University College
London. As well as writing about Earth
and space science, he runs a computer
graphics company specializing in the
visualization of astronomical and
geographical data and phenomena.
Anton Vamplew is a freelance
astronomer and writes about
astronomy in books and magazines.
He worked at the planetarium at the
Royal Greenwich Observatory for ten
years and broadcasts regularly on
television and radio.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-2414-4671-3

Printed and bound in China

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This book was made with Forest

Stewardship Council ™ certified
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For more information go to
www.dk.com/our-green-pledge
CONTENTS
7 WHAT IS ASTRONOMY? 20 THE BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE
The Big Bang
THE UNIVERSE 22 FIRST LIGHT
The first stars and galaxies
10 MAKING SENSE OF SPACE 24 SPACE IS GETTING BIGGER
What is the Universe? Expanding space
12 CELESTIAL BODIES 25 SEEING INTO THE PAST
Objects in space Distance in space
14 THE SMALLEST UNITS 26 WARPED SPACE AND TIME
Particles Space-time
15 BUILDING BLOCKS 28 RIPPLES IN SPACE-TIME
Atoms Gravitational waves
16 ACROSS THE SPECTRUM 29 BODIES IN MOTION
Radiation Orbits
18 SPLITTING LIGHT 30 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE
Spectroscopy Dark matter
19 SHIFTING LIGHT 31 THE ENERGY OF SPACE
Red shift and blue shift Dark energy
 53 SUPERSIZED VOLCANOES
Volcanoes on Mars
54 ROCKS IN SPACE
Asteroids
56 KING OF THE GIANTS
Jupiter
58 THE JOVIAN SATELLITES
Jupiter’s moons
60 THE RINGED PLANET
Saturn

THE SOLAR 62 BANDS OF ICE

Saturn’s rings
SYSTEM 64 THE METHANE MOON
Titan
34 THE FAMILY OF THE SUN 65 THE E-RING MOON
The Sun and planets Enceladus
36 OUR STAR 66 THE SIDEWAYS PLANET
The Sun Uranus
38 THE SWIFT PLANET
67 THE OUTERMOST GIANT
Mercury
Neptune
40 EARTH’S SISTER
68 FROZEN WORLD
Venus
Pluto
42 HOME WORLD
70 COLD OUTER RING
Earth
The Kuiper Belt
44 EARTH’S SATELLITE
The Moon 71 SMALL WORLDS
Dwarf planets
46 TURNING IN STEP
The Moon’s orbit 72 CLOUD OF COMETS
The Oort Cloud
47 NEW MOON
TO FULL MOON 73 THE OUTER LIMITS
The phases of the Moon The edge of the Solar System
48 IN THE MOON’S SHADOW 74 COSMIC SNOWBALLS
Solar eclipses Comets
48 IN EARTH’S SHADOW 75 HOW COMETS ORBIT
Lunar eclipses Comet orbits
50 THE RED PLANET 76 STREAKS OF LIGHT
Mars Meteors
52 MARTIAN ICE 77 STREAMS OF DEBRIS
Water on Mars Meteor showers
 97 STAR CITIES
Globular clusters
98 PLANETS AROUND
OTHER STARS
Exoplanets
99 A PLACE TO LIVE
Habitable zones
100 ISLANDS OF STARS
Galaxies
102 OUR GALAXY
STARS AND The Milky Way
104 EXTREME ENERGY
GALAXIES Active galaxies
106 GALAXIES FORM GROUPS
80 LIGHTS IN THE SKY Galaxy clusters
What is a star?
107 CLUSTERS OF CLUSTERS
81 FROM MATTER TO ENERGY Galaxy superclusters
How stars shine
108 THE MACROSCOPIC
82 DWARFS, GIANTS, UNIVERSE
AND SUPERGIANTS The cosmological principle
Types of star
109 THE COSMIC WEB
84 STAR LIFE AND DEATH
Filaments and voids
Stellar evolution
86 STARBIRTH
How stars form
88 SHELLS AND SHOCKWAVES
Planetary nebulae
90 EXPLODING STARS
Supernovae
92 CRUSHED STARS
Neutron stars
93 COLLAPSING TO INFINITY
Black holes
94 COMPANION STARS
Multiple stars
95 DIMMING AND BRIGHTENING
Variable stars
96 SIBLING STARS
Open clusters
OBSERVING
THE NIGHT SKY
112 THE SKY AS A SPHERE
The celestial sphere
114 WHEN TO SEE STARS
Time of night
115 WHERE IN THE WORLD
Night sky and location
116 THE ORBITAL PLANE
Finding planets
117 WHEN TO SPOT PLANETS
How planets align
118 SEEING THE SKIES
Observing conditions
119 LOST IN THE LIGHT
Light pollution
120 COMPARING
BRIGHTNESS
The magnitude scale
121 CELESTIAL GUIDES
Star charts
122 JOINING DOTS IN THE SKY
Starhopping
123 LETTING IN LIGHT
Aperture and magnification
124 CHOOSING
BINOCULARS
Types of binoculars
125 STAYING FOCUSED
Using binoculars
126 THE SKY IN CLOSE-UP
Telescopes
THE
CONSTELLATIONS
130 MAPPING THE SKY
What is a constellation?
132 PATTERNS IN THE SKY
The constellations
136 THE NORTHERN SKY
Northern constellations
137 THE SOUTHERN SKY
Southern constellations
138 THE GREAT BEAR
Ursa Major
140 STARHOPPING
FROM THE PLOUGH
The sky around the Plough
142 THE SWAN
Cygnus
144 STARHOPPING FROM THE
SQUARE OF PEGASUS
The sky around Pegasus
146 THE RAGING BULL
Taurus
148 THE HUNTER
Orion
150 STARHOPPING FROM ORION
The sky around Orion
152 THE ARCHER
Sagittarius
154 STARHOPPING FROM CRUX
The sky around Crux
156 INDEX
WHAT IS
ASTRONOMY?
THE NIGHT SKY has always inspired mystery and wonder.
Astronomy aims to make sense of the Universe, confronting some
of our most fundamental questions, such as how did everything
begin and is there life beyond Earth? It can explain some of the
mysteries but a sense of wonder remains. If anything, modern
science reveals a cosmos that is more vast, strange, and complex
than might have seemed possible to people even a few centuries
ago. For example, to the unaided eye, stars seem like nothing more
than points of light. But, with the aid of telescopes and other
instruments, we can see that each of these points is a star like our
own Sun. We know that a star is a ball of incredibly hot gas that
emits energy as a result of nuclear fusion reactions. We have also
discovered that stars have complex, often spectacular life histories
and that many of them are orbited by systems of planets. From a
distance, some of these planets even look similar to Earth.
Over the course of its history, astronomy has been propelled
forwards by a combination of technological progress and advances
in scientific understanding. The last few decades have seen rapid
change in both areas. We can now see far out into space (and
hence far back in time) by sending telescopes into orbit. We can
dispatch robots to explore the surfaces of other planets. But,
despite all our achievements, many questions remain. We still
cannot describe the Universe’s size or shape, and more than
95 per cent of its substance is invisible to us. The Universe has
not yet given up all its secrets.

INTRODUCTION 7
t h e
u n i v
e r s e
The Universe is all matter, energy, space, and time. Its size
alone can make it seem incomprehensibly vast and baffling.
But even the Universe’s largest structures are made of the
same chemical elements that are around us on Earth – and
indeed in our own bodies – and all atoms and subatomic
particles are subject to the same fundamental forces.
These particles and forces can be traced to the Universe’s
early history. The story of the Universe started with the
Big Bang, when everything expanded from an unimaginably
hot and infinitely small, dense point. Ever since, it has been
cooling, expanding, and evolving as its original materials
have been scattered and recycled across space and time.
 ED
3. 2 GE
5 M OF T
IL L H
I O N E LO
LI G C A
HT L G
-YE RO
AR UP
S
ED
70 , 0 G E O F
00
L I G TH E M
HT-
Y E A I LK Y
RS WA
Y

PROXIMA CENTAURI
EDGE Nearest star, 4.2 light-years
O F TH
1 L I G HT E SO
-YE AR L AR
S YS
TE M

OUTER EDGE OF
Distance in space THE OORT CLOUD
To fit the Universe into this About 1 light-year,
graphic, each step on the scale 9.5 trillion km
represents a distance 100 times (5.9 trillion miles)
greater than the previous step.
Many of the distances are in OUTER EDGE OF
light-years. A light-year is the THE KUIPER BELT
distance travelled by light in a 10 billion km
(6.2 billion miles)
year, or about 9.5 trillion km

(62 trillion miles)

100 TRILLION KM
(5.9 trillion miles).

THE SUN
(620 billion miles)
1 TRILLION KM

150 million km
(93 million miles)
(6.2 billion miles)
10 BILLION KM

VENUS
At least 42 million km
(62 million miles)
100 MILLION KM

(26 million miles)

THE MOON
384,000 km
(620,000 miles)
1,000,000 KM

(239,000 miles)
(6,200 miles)
10,000 KM

H
RT
EA
 ANDROMEDA GALAXY Structures in space
2.5 million light-years Celestial objects sit within a
hierarchy of structures bound
by gravity. For example, the
VIRGO CLUSTER planets and smaller bodies in
60 million light-years the Solar System are all held
in orbit around the Sun by
gravity. The Solar System, in
turn, is part of the Milky Way.

GN-Z11
Most distant galaxy observed
(6.2 X 10 21 miles)
10 22 KM
13.4 billion light-years
(6.2 X 10 19 miles)
10 20 KM
(6.2 X 10 17 miles)
10 18 KM
(6.2 x 10 15 miles)
10 16 KM

MAKING SENSE
OF SPACE
The Universe is everything that exists. We
EDG

do not know how big it is, partly because we

EDG
EO
F T

E OF

cannot see it all but even the part we can see is

HE L

TH E

vast. Light from its edge, moving at 299,792 km

25 0

13.8
ANIA

OBS

(186,282 miles) per second, has taken 13.8 billion

MIL L

BILLI
KE A

E RVA

years to reach us. The Universe also includes a

ION L

ON LIG
S U PE

BL E U

huge amount of matter. The Sun is one of up

IGHT-Y
RCLU S

HT-YE A
N IVE RS

to 400 billion stars in our galaxy – and there

E ARS
TE R

could be 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.

RS
E

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE? 11

 The Solar System Gas and dust Stars
The Solar System is the Over 90 per cent of all the A star is a massive, hot ball
part of space influenced Universe’s ordinary matter of gas that emits radiation
by the Sun’s gravity. The is in the form of low-density as a result of nuclear fusion
objects orbiting the Sun gas between the stars and taking place in its core. The
include rocky planets and galaxies, most of it Sun is an average star, but
larger giant planets, their hydrogen. In galaxies, stars the Universe is also home
moons, and countless form in denser clouds of to much smaller dwarf
asteroids and comets. gas and dust. stars and larger giant stars.

THE SUN STAR-FORMING NEBULA GIANT STAR

GIANT PLANET INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM SUNLIKE STAR

(GAS AND DUST)

ROCKY PLANET DWARF STAR

CELESTIAL BODIES
MOON
The Universe consists of energy, space, and
matter. Matter is anything that has mass – that
is, anything affected by gravity. Most of the
matter drifts through space as gas. But some of it
ASTEROID
clumps together to form objects such as stars and
planets. Not all of the Universe’s matter is of the
ordinary kind that we can see. In fact, most of it
is invisible to us. Astronomers call this dark
COMET matter (see p.30).

12 OBJECTS IN SPACE
 Star remnants Galaxies Groupings of galaxies
Stars do not shine forever. A galaxy is a large Most galaxies are part of
On using up their fuel, they collection of stars (some groups (or clusters) held
leave behind an array of orbited by planets), gas, together by gravity. In
remnant objects. These and dust. Galaxies come turn, clusters are part of
include some of the most in various shapes and even larger superclusters.
extreme objects in the sizes, containing from a Galaxy superclusters are
Universe – neutron stars few million to several the largest structures
and black holes. trillion stars. bound by gravity.

SUPERNOVA REMNANT SPIRAL GALAXY GALAXY CLUSTER

PLANETARY NEBULA ELLIPTICAL GALAXY GALAXY SUPERCLUSTER

NEUTRON STAR IRREGULAR GALAXY

BLACK HOLE ACTIVE GALAXY

There are about 2 trillion

galaxies in the part of the
Universe that we can observe.

OBJECTS IN SPACE 13
 B OT TO M
Q UA R K

N
RO
QU
TO K

CT
AR
P

E LE

O
S

IN
N

C H UA

EL
TR
IO

Q
AR RK

EU

EM
M

N
RM

ST

EN
R ON
Y FE

QU ANG OT
AR E PH

TAR
K Elementary particles
Elementary particles are indivisible, with
ELEM E NTA R

Y
no internal structure. Some combine S
D OW HIGG

B OSONS
N with other matter and force-carrier S O N
Q UA R B O
K particles to make composite particles.
QUA R K S

Some of the most widespread elementary

particles in the Universe are shown here
UP QUARK (although not all quarks are stable). GLUON

THE SMALLEST UNITS

Objects in the Universe take a vast array of forms – from the
familiar surfaces of rocky planets, to intensely hot stars and
infinitely dense black holes. Different though they are, these
objects are all made up of the same extremely small units,
known as particles. As well as particles that form matter
(called fermions), there are other particles, known as bosons,
that transfer forces between matter particles.

Composite particles
Also known as hadrons,
composite particles have an
internal structure. They include
protons and neutrons, which were
once thought to be elementary
but are now known to be made of
quarks held together by gluons.
PROTON NEUTRON

14 PARTICLES
 Negatively charged

ELECTRONS
electrons move around in
the space surrounding the
nucleus. The region where
they are likely to be found is
called an electron cloud.

DIN G B LO C
U I L KS
B
The nucleus at the centre

NUCLEUS
of every atom contains
positively charged protons.
The nuclei of all atoms N
EE S
except hydrogen also T W ON
B E C TR
contain neutrons, which have N L E
IO
no charge, giving the nucleus CT DE
T R A S AN
an overall positive charge. AT ON
OT
PR

PROTON NEUTRON

NU
CLEUS
Most large-scale matter is built from atoms, made
of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons’
positive charge is balanced by the electrons’
negative charge so an atom has no overall
charge. But if it gains or loses electrons,
it becomes a charged particle
called an ion.

Atomic structure
In each element, the atomic nucleus contains
a characteristic number of protons. A neutral
helium atom has a nucleus with two protons
and two neutrons, orbited by two electrons.

ATOMS 15
16
1 KM
FREQUENCY

RADIATION
Radio waves
Radio waves can be many

and vice versa.

10 M
metres long. Sources
include stars, supernova

is the number of crests

remnants, galaxies,

The frequency of a wave

that pass a given point in

quasars, and pulsars.

1 second. Long-wavelength
radiation has low frequency

All forms of

speed of light.
WAVELENGTH

electromagnetic radiation
travel through space at the
Microwaves
WAVELENGTH
The oldest radiation in the
Universe, emitted soon after
the Big Bang, has now cooled

The distance between

troughs of a wave is its

so much that it is mainly in the

two successive crests or

wavelength. Radio waves

gamma rays the shortest.

form of microwaves. Microwave
1 MM

have the longest wavelength,

observations are also used to
detect interstellar molecules.

Infrared
Infrared radiation, felt as heat,
is emitted by galaxies, nebulae,
and interstellar gas and dust.
 Observation of this high-energy

they can reveal exploding stars,

radiation is used to study black

neutron stars, black holes, and

huge explosions called gamma
of radiation. Although gamma
This is the most powerful kind
Light is emitted by most stars

objects such as neutron stars.

rays cannot easily be focused,

colliding stars and galaxies,
UV light is emitted by hot

holes, neutron stars, and

among other objects.

Ultraviolet (UV)
and some nebulae.

Gamma rays
Visible light

ray bursts.
X-rays

10 NM 0.1 NM 0.00001 NM
1 NM = 1 BILLIONTH OF A METRE

ACROSS THE SPECTRUM

Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is energy that travels in the
form of waves. Along with matter, it is one of the main
components of the Universe. All forms of ordinary matter
emit EM radiation, which can travel through empty space as
well as some types of matter. Visible light is the most familiar
form of EM radiation. Other forms include infrared, radio
waves, and X-rays. These differ in their wavelengths and the
way they interact with matter. The full range of wavelengths
is called the electromagnetic spectrum.

RADIATION 17
 SPLITTING LIGHT
The atoms of each chemical element emit or absorb radiation
at characteristic wavelengths (see pp.16–17). This means that
by studying the light emitted or absorbed by an object, such
as a star or a nebula, astronomers can work out what it is
made of. The spectrum of radiation emitted by an object is
like a fingerprint. Studying these “fingerprints” is known as
spectroscopy, and the instruments used to generate and
analyse them are called spectrographs.

ABSORPTION LINES
In this type of spectrum, called an

400
STAR absorption spectrum, each element
produces a unique pattern of black
lines, caused by atoms absorbing
radiation at specific wavelengths.

STARLIGHT

WAVELENGTH (NANOMETRES)
The light coming from a
star contains a mixture
of wavelengths.

SLIT

GR
AT
I NG
SPECTROGRAPH

Light enters the spectrograph,

700

where a diffraction grating splits

it into its constituent wavelengths.

18 SPECTROSCOPY
 LIGHT FROM DISTANT
OBSERVER

GALAXY GALAXY

SPECTRAL
LINE

OBSERVER AND OBJECT STATIONARY ABSORPTION

SPECTRUM

LIGHT WAVES
STRETCHED

OBSERVER AND GALAXY MOVING APART

RED SHIFT
Waves of light from the
object become longer;
lines shift towards the
LIGHT WAVES red end of the spectrum.
COMPRESSED

OBSERVER AND GALAXY MOVING CLOSER

BLUE SHIFT

Light waves are compressed,

with shorter wavelengths;
spectral lines shift towards blue.

SHIFTING LIGHT
The light emitted by an object can reveal not only what that object
is made of but also how it is moving. When a source of light, such
as a galaxy, and an observer are moving relative to each other, the
observer receives light of a different colour compared with when
they are not moving. The whole spectrum is shifted towards the
red when the object is receding and towards the blue when it is
approaching. The faster the relative motion, the greater the shift.

RED SHIFT AND BLUE SHIFT 19

 BIG BANG

ELECTRON

POSITRON

S
ND
INFLATION

CO
In its first 10 -35 seconds,

SE
PHOTON
the Universe doubled in

10 -32

S
size 100 times over. Then,

TE
in a period called inflation,
QUARK

NU
it expanded at faster than
the speed of light, becoming

MI
cooler and less dense.

20
GLUON

MATTER AND ENERGY LITHIUM-7

At first, the Universe was so hot that NUCLEUS
matter could easily change into energy
and vice versa. At the end of inflation, PROTON
as the temperature fell, elementary (HYDROGEN
particles (see p.14), including quarks NUCLEUS)
and electrons, emerged.

HYDROGEN-2
NUCLEUS (PROTON

THE BIRTH OF
AND NEUTRON)

THE UNIVERSE
About 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe began
in an event called the Big Bang. All the matter and
energy in the present-day Universe expanded outwards
from an incredibly hot, infinitesimally small point of infinite
density called a singularity. At first, the Universe consisted only
of energy. But within the first minuscule fractions of a second,
it had expanded rapidly and a sea of matter and force particles
had emerged. The Universe continues to expand to this day.

20 THE BIG BANG

 ATOMIC NUCLEI FORM
Within a millionth of a second,
quarks were bound together by
gluons to form protons and
neutrons. After 20 minutes,
HELIUM-4 some of these had combined
NUCLEUS to form atomic nuclei.

HELIUM-3
NUCLEUS
RS
EA
0Y
,00

THE FIRST ATOMS

0
38

For atoms to form,

atomic nuclei have to
combine with orbiting
electrons. But the early
LITHIUM-7 Universe was too hot and
ATOM dense for this to happen.
It would be another
380,000 years before
conditions were right.

HELIUM-3
ATOM

Despite its
HYDROGEN
ATOM
name, the Big
Bang was not
an explosion
into space but a
rapid expansion
HELIUM-4
of everything,
ATOM including
space itself.

THE BIG BANG 21

 FIRST LIGHT Compared with

300 MILLION YEARS

AFTER BIG BANG
later generations
of stars, the early
stars consumed
In cosmic terms, the first stars formed just their fuel supplies
relatively quickly
a short time after the Big Bang. These were and then exploded
huge stars that existed for a relatively short as supernovae.

time and then exploded as supernovae.

Before the Universe was half a billion years
old, small galaxies had also emerged. They
would go on to merge to form larger galaxies.

The early Universe Early stars formed inside giant

380,000–200 MILLION
YEARS AFTER BIG BANG

200 MILLION YEARS

AFTER BIG BANG

consisted of atoms of clouds of gas. Unlike later

ordinary matter amid generations of stars, they
another kind of matter consisted only of hydrogen
known as dark matter and helium, with no
(see p.30). This period is heavy elements.
called the Cosmic Dark
Age because there were
no sources of light.

S EXPLODE

SUPERNOVA
TAR
TARS

Y S
DARK AGE

RL

EARLY STAR
ST S

EA
FIR
MIC
COS
HE

22 THE FIRST STARS AND GALAXIES

 400 MILLION YEARS Under the influence of dark
AFTER BIG BANG matter, stars clumped together
to form infant galaxies.
These were relatively small
structures, known
as dwarf galaxies.

MERGING DWARF
GALAXIES

S EVOLVE SPIRAL
GALAXY
IES FORM

X IE
LA

DWARF
GALAXY
A
X

G
LA
GA

YEARS AFTER
800 MILLION

The formation of the first

BIG BANG

galaxies triggered waves of new

star formation. Mergers between
the early dwarf galaxies led to
the formation of larger galaxies.

THE FIRST STARS AND GALAXIES 23

 SPACE IS
GETTING BIGGER
Ever since the Big Bang, the Universe has been getting bigger.
This is because space itself is expanding. On large scales,
objects in space are getting further apart. This does not
apply to objects attracted to each other by gravity, such
as stars in a galaxy or even galaxies in a galaxy cluster,
but galaxy clusters themselves are getting further
apart. Not only are these far-off objects getting
further away from us, but the more distant an
object is, the faster it is moving away.

UNI V E R S E
FUTURE
SPACE
EXPANDS
As space expands, GREATER
galaxy clusters DISTANCE
become further
apart. The space in
between becomes
increasingly empty.

ACCELERATING
EXPANSION
PRESENT DAY
For about the last
7.5 billion years, the
expansion of the
Universe has been
How space expands speeding up. This might
be due to dark energy
Galaxies and other
(see p.31), which acts in
objects are not getting opposition to gravity.
larger, nor are they
moving through space.
Instead, space itself is
expanding, carrying
objects with it.

24 EXPANDING SPACE
 Types of distance Light radiates from a distant

LIGHT FROM
DISTANT GALAXY
Astronomers usually use lookback galaxy in all directions,
including towards Earth.
distance to state how far away an
As the light is travelling, the
object is. But the actual distance to expansion of space carries the
the object now is its proper distance. two galaxies further apart.
11 BILLION YEARS AGO

EARTH

XY
AL A
AY

TG
W

N
Y

TA
K
IL

IS
M D
PRESENT DAY

EARTH

LIGHT REACHES
MILKY WAY

LOOKBACK DISTANCE DISTANCE RECEDED

PROPER DISTANCE

SEEING INTO THE PAST

Light travels incredibly fast, but it still takes time for light from an
object in space to reach Earth. So when we look at a celestial object,
we see it as it was in the past. The further we look into space, the
further we see into the past. When talking about the distance to
these remote objects, we have to remember that space is continually
expanding. The distance light has travelled from an object to reach
us is called the lookback distance. But the current actual distance
to the same object is greater and is called the proper distance.

DISTANCE IN SPACE 25
 Einstein’s gravity
Albert Einstein proposed that gravity
is a distortion of space-time. Here,
the three dimensions of space are
represented by a two-dimensional,
stretchable rubber sheet.

SPACE-TIME GRID
An imaginary grid of squares
makes it easier to see the
distortion of the rubber
sheet in this model.

WARPED SPACE AND TIME

In the early 20th century, Albert Einstein and others realized that
space and time are not separate entities but are, in fact, closely linked.
The three dimensions of space and the single dimension of time can
be combined into a four-dimensional realm called space-time. This
idea has important implications for how objects move through time
and space because mass and energy distort space-time. According to
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravity is the effect that these
distortions have on the path that an object takes through space-time.

26 SPACE-TIME
 The star and planet attract each other,

GRAVITY AS
A FORCE
but the effect on the planet is more
obvious because it has less mass.

STAR

PLANET

Isaac Newton’s gravity

Newton’s theory of gravity, later
STAR
surpassed by Einstein’s, describes gravity
as a mutual force of attraction between
objects with mass. The greater the mass,
the stronger the gravitational pull.

PLANET

When a small object

SPACE-TIME
ORBITS IN

such as a planet is close

to a more massive object
such as a star, it follows a
curved path.
DISTORTION BY MASS

The stretching of a two-

dimensional rubber sheet into a
dip when a weight is placed on it
can help us understand how the
space dimensions of space-time
become warped near an object
with mass, such as a star.

SPACE-TIME 27
 When an object with mass accelerates (undergoes a change in its
velocity), it sends out ripples that travel through space-time (see
pp.26–27) at the speed of light. These ripples are called gravitational
waves. Astronomers detected a gravitational wave for the first time in
2015, picking up the disturbance caused by a collision between two
black holes. Other energetic events, such as supernovae and collisions
between neutron stars, might also generate detectable waves.

Two black holes, each with As they orbit each other,

COLLIDING
BLACK HOLES

GRAVITATIONAL
WAVES
about 20 times more mass the two black holes send
than the Sun, approach ripples out into space-time.
each other, orbit a mutual When they eventually
centre of mass, and collide, a massive
eventually collide. shockwave is released.

R I PPL E S I N S PAC E -T I M E

The first gravitational waves were

detected exactly 100 years after they
were predicted by Albert Einstein.

28 GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
 PLANET

KEPLER’S FIRST LAW

SUN AT FOCUS SECONDARY The orbit of a planet is an ellipse

POINT FOCUS POINT with two focus points. The Sun
sits at one focus. The planet is
ORBIT always at the same combined
distance from these two points.

100-DAY
PERIOD KEPLER’S SECOND LAW
A planet speeds up as it gets
100-DAY closer to the Sun. An imaginary
PERIOD line from a planet to the Sun
sweeps out equal areas in equal
periods of time.

SLOW-MOVING
OUTER PLANETS KEPLER’S THIRD LAW
Planets take longer to complete
an orbit the further they are
from the Sun. Kepler’s third law
links a planet’s orbital period to
FAST-MOVING
the size of its orbit.
INNER PLANETS

BODIES IN MOTION
The path of a body moving under the gravitational influence of
another is called an orbit. The less massive object follows a curved
path, constantly changing its direction and speed. The smaller body
does not simply orbit the larger. Instead, both move around a point
called their joint centre of mass. Where one object orbits another in
a closed system (like a planet in the Solar System), the two bodies
follow three laws discovered by the astronomer Johannes Kepler.

ORBITS 29
 Dark haloes Hidden matter
The way that most galaxies The unseen Universe
rotate cannot be explained consists partly of dark
by the amounts of ordinary matter but mostly of dark
matter we can detect. energy (see opposite).
Models of how they form
KEY
and rotate suggest that
galaxies, including the ORDINARY MATTER 4.9%
Milky Way, are surrounded DARK MATTER 26.8%
by haloes of dark matter. DARK ENERGY 68.3%

THE UNSEEN
UNIVERSE
We see objects such as stars and planets
because they emit or reflect light or other
radiation. But the ordinary matter in these objects
accounts for just 5 per cent of all matter. About
25 per cent is matter in an invisible form called dark
matter. We know it is there only because its
gravity affects ordinary matter. Dark matter
could be ordinary matter that does not emit
much radiation. But it seems more likely
to be made of subatomic particles
that do not interact with
radiation at all.

30 DARK MATTER
 THE ENERGY OF SPACE
Most of the mass and energy in the Universe is in the form
of a mysterious invisible substance or force known as dark
energy that is causing the expansion of the Universe to
accelerate. A possible explanation is that space is not simply
“nothing” but instead has intrinsic properties that oppose
gravity and stop the Universe from contracting. We do not
experience the effects of dark energy because, at the scales
most familiar to us, gravity binds matter together.

ACCELERATING
EXPANSION
PRESENT DAY
The rate of expansion
is increasing, possibly
because the influence
of dark energy grows as
the Universe expands
and more space comes
into existence.

7. 5 B Following the Big Bang,

SLOWING EXPANSION
IL
After its initial rapid
expansion, the Universe
kept getting larger but
at a slower rate. This
continued until the
Universe was about
7.5 billion years old.
L I O N Y E A R S AG O the Universe expanded
rapidly. The speed was
at its most extreme
during the period of
inflation (see p.20).
RAPID EARLY EXPANSION

Time began 13.8 billion years ago

BIG BANG

DARK ENERGY 31
t h e s
s y s t
o l a r
e m
The Sun, our nearest star, dominates the Solar System. Its
gravitational influence extends over a vast region of space
that includes eight major planets, more than 200 moons,
and countless other small bodies, including dwarf planets,
asteroids, and comets. As well as holding these objects in
their orbits, the Sun is also their primary source of energy.
As our neighbourhood, the Solar System is the corner of the
Universe that we know best. We can see the Moon’s craters
and plains and several planets without the help of binoculars
or telescopes. All the planets and some of the smaller
bodies have also now been visited by spacecraft, which have
sent back data, pictures, and even some physical samples.
 The Sun makes up
99.8 per cent of the
Solar System’s mass.
COMET

T H E FA
M I LY O F T H E S U N
ASTEROID BELT
MERCURY

JUPITER
VENUS

EARTH

MARS
SUN

Energy source
All planets in our Solar System
orbit the Sun. The closer each
planet is to the Sun, the more
energy and heat it receives.

34 THE SUN AND PLANETS

 Sun Mercury Earth Pluto

0.01 AU 0.1 AU 1 AU 10 AU 100 AU 10 3 AU 10 4 AU 10 5 AU

Asteroid Belt Kuiper Belt Oort Cloud

Solar System distances

Earth is 150 million km (93 million miles), or one
astronomical unit (AU), from the Sun. On this
graphic, the distance markers increase by a
factor of 10 with each step away from the Sun.

KUIPER BELT
NEPTUNE
URANUS
SATURN

PLUTO

The Solar System is a family of objects held in position by

the gravitational attraction of the Sun. Each planet orbits the
Sun at a different speed. Nearest the Sun are the four rocky
planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – followed by the
Asteroid Belt, an area filled with tens of thousands of rocky
objects. The giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune – orbit further out from the Sun. Beyond Neptune
is the Kuiper Belt, a doughnut-shaped disc of icy objects.
Further still, more icy objects are found in the Oort Cloud.

THE SUN AND PLANETS 35

 CONVECTIVE
CURRENTS In a repeating cycle, hot
gas rises, transfers energy
to the surface of the Sun,
then cools and sinks down.

CONV
R AD
Internal structure
Intense heat and pressure in the
Sun’s core trigger nuclear fusion
IATIV E ZO NE

E C T I V E ZO N E
CORE

reactions. This generates energy,

which slowly travels through the
dense radiative zone before being
transferred, via circulating pockets
of gas, through the convective
zone towards the photosphere.

The Sun is 1.4 million km

(870,000 miles) wide,
meaning that over a million
Earths could fit inside it.
ATMOSPHERE

The photosphere, the first

of three layers comprising
the Sun’s atmosphere,
is transparent to light,
creating the illusion
of a solid surface.
 SUN

UP TO
1,000,000
YEARS 8 MINUTES
CORE
EARTH

Speed of light
The Sun is so dense that it can take up to
1 million years for energy to escape. However,
it only takes eight minutes for this energy, as
radiation, to reach us from the Sun.
C H R O M O S PH E R E
P H OTO S P H E R E

C O RO N A

PROMINENCE
Prominences (streams of
ionized gas) burst from
the Sun’s chromosphere.

OUR STAR
The Sun is the largest and hottest object in our
Solar System, and our main source of energy. It is
mostly made of hydrogen, which contains so much
energy that it exists in a state called a plasma, where
electrons escape atoms and leave them electrically
charged. At the Sun’s core, temperatures reach
15 million°C (27 million°F). The Sun has a mass of
around 330,000 times that of Earth, and its gravity
binds everything in the Solar System in orbit.

THE SUN 37
 THE SWIFT PLANET
The smallest planet in the Solar System, Mercury
is smaller than the largest moons of Jupiter and
Saturn. It is so close to the Sun that from its
surface, the Sun would seem two to three MILTON
times larger than it does on Earth. At
more than 170,000 kph (106,000 mph),
TOLSTOJ
Mercury has the fastest orbit of any
planet. However, its slow rate of
rotation means that a day on
Mercury lasts twice as long as a
year. This, along with Mercury’s
lack of atmosphere, results in
the greatest temperature ODIN
PLANITIA
variation of any planet, with
highs of up to 430°C (806°F)
in the day and lows as cold
as -180°C (-292°F) at night.
CALORIS
BASIN
VAST CRATER
At over 1,500 km (930 miles)
across, the Caloris Basin is one of
the Solar System’s largest impact
craters. It is encircled by a ring of
mountains 2 km (1.2 miles) high.

A year on Mercury – the

amount of time the planet
takes to fully orbit the
Sun – lasts just 88 days.

38 MERCURY
 MERCURY

PE
ELION

RIHELION
SUN

APH
O R B I TA L PAT H

Eccentric orbit
Mercury has the most
eccentric (elongated) orbit of
all the planets. At perihelion,
its closest point to the Sun,
Mercury is 47 million km (29
S I LI C A
MO

million miles) from the Sun,

R O C K Y M A NTLE
SO

ATMOSPHERE
LTEN IRON CORE

while at aphelion, its furthest

LID I

TE R O C K C RU ST

point, it is 70 million km
(43 million miles) away.
RO N C
OR
E

INTERNAL STRUCTURE

A semi-molten rock mantle 600 km

(400 miles) thick surrounds Mercury’s
giant core, which boasts more iron
than any other planet in the Solar
System. Surrounding this is Mercury’s
crust, a harsh landscape made of
basalt and other silicate rocks, and
dotted with impact craters.

MERCURY 39
 “There are so many stars
shining in the sky … but
when Venus comes out, all
the others are waned ... ”
Galileo Galilei

Internal structure
With an iron core and a
hot, rocky mantle, Venus
CLOUD DECK is similar in structure to
A thick layer of
Earth and only 650 km
cloud obscures the (400 miles) smaller in
surface of Venus. diameter. The two also
share a rocky surface.
AR
RI
VI
NG

HT
L IG
SU

S UN
NL

D
TE
IG

C
LE
HT

F
RE

INFRARED
RADIATION

SURF
AC E

Greenhouse effect
Only 35 per cent of the sunlight
Venus’s rocky
that hits Venus breaks through
terrain features
SURFACE

its clouds. The thick atmosphere many volcanoes

prevents any rising radiation from and craters, and
escaping, so heating the planet. vast lava plains.

40 VENUS
 EARTH’S SISTER
In structure and size, Venus is strikingly
similar to Earth, its neighbour and “twin”
planet. On the ground, however, Venus
is a fiery, waterless, and harsh terrain.
Its thick atmosphere, at 96.5 per cent
carbon dioxide, traps the nearby Sun’s
heat. This makes Venus the hottest
planet in the Solar System, with
surface temperatures as high as
471°C (880°F) – hot enough to
melt lead. The planet’s surface
is also littered with volcanoes
M
OS

DENSE A
H OT

no more than 500 million

TLY

R O C K Y C RU ST
, R O C K Y M A NTLE

years old, a few of which may

S O LI D I RO N

be active or just dormant.

TM O S PH E R E
CO
RE

ATMOSPHERE
The lower layer of Venus’s
atmosphere is dense, thick, and
extremely hot. Above it, the
planet’s cloud deck extends
32–90 km (20–55 miles) above
its surface. From there, the air
gradually thins out into space.

VENUS 41
 HOME Below continents, Earth’s

VARIABLE
CRUST
crust can be up to 70 km
(43 miles) thick. Below

WORLD oceans, however, it can be

as thin as 5 km (3 miles).

Situated between Venus and

Mars, Earth is the only planet
in the Solar System known to
host life. This is largely possible
because of the fine balance
between Earth’s distance
from the Sun and the planet’s
moderately thick atmosphere,
along with an abundance of

E
NTL
water. Five huge oceans cover
ED ATMOSPHERE

Y U PPE R M A NTL E

K Y L OW E R M A
O C K Y C RU ST

ID OUTER CORE
69 per cent of Earth’s total

R
INNE R C O
surface, and icy polar caps
a further 2 per cent, while
the rest is land. Earth is a
TH I N , R

LID
, RO C

dynamic planet, with slow-

L AYER

F LU
RO C K

O
moving tectonic plates that,
S
IC K

on colliding with each other,

TH

give rise to features such as

mountain ranges, volcanoes,
and deep-sea trenches.

Internal structure
Earth’s iron-nickel inner core
While Earth’s mantle
is encased in a liquid-iron outer
is basically solid, it can
core, a mostly solid mantle,
MANTLE

slowly deform, causing small

SOLID

and a crust made up of many movements in the planet’s

different types of rock. crust over millions of years.

42 EARTH
 SOLAR
M A G N E TI C F I E

SE
WIND LD

N E TO PAU
SUN EARTH

AG
M
Magnetosphere
Earth is shielded from the solar
wind – charged particles ejected
from the Sun – by its magnetic
field, which creates a magnetic
bubble in space called the
magnetosphere. The front
surface of the magnetosphere,
the magnetopause, is where the
solar wind is deflected away.

Some parts of
Earth’s surface
experience
stronger gravity
than others. This
is because Earth
is not perfectly
round but rather
slightly squashed,
AND WEATHER

Although Earth’s oxygen-

ATMOSPHERE

rich, layered atmosphere is

several hundred kilometres so that it is wider
thick, most of its weather
systems are found in the
at the equator.
lowest 10 km (6 miles).

EARTH 43
Another random document with
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his head. The Arch-priest's office is naturally more sacerdotal in its
nature than that of his comrades, for it is he who is entrusted with the
due performance of all the services of the temple, and he too assists
at the solemn ceremony of censing the crystal altar of the Sun, as I
have already shown. He is also the custodian of the awful Fountain
of Rejuvenation, though his guardianship is shared by other
members of the inner ring. One day, finding the venerable head of
the council in an unusually expansive mood, I ventured to question
him openly upon the properties of this sacred well, this Zem-Zem of
Meleagrian un-faith. He replied that its medicated waters, though
highly beneficial to a mortal born of the Earth, would prove fatal to
any Meleagrian rash enough to attempt their use. Moreover, he
added that should anyone plunge alone and unattended into this
well, the terrific suction of the current beneath would infallibly drag
the body under, never to reappear. I then questioned him if many
such accidents had ever occurred, whereupon he answered dryly
that none had happened in his own experience; which equivocal
reply I interpreted as admitting that fatal incidents in the past were by
no means unknown. I then twitted him jokingly for not renewing his
own youth, of course with all proper precautions, in the fountain of
his charge, to which he replied with considerable asperity and horror,
using the most solemn Meleagrian form of denial: "May the God
perish first and the Sun be darkened!" After this vigorous negation
he took his departure with some abruptness, nor could I ever entice
him to speak again of the fountain.
I fully realise that my account of the hierarchy or governing class of
Meleager is both incomplete and unsatisfactory, but I must plead
again the many difficulties of obtaining information which I have
already mentioned. In fact, it is from two sources only that I can
derive any details whatever, these being my own limited
opportunities of observation and discovery and the rare statements
that the Arch-priest lets fall from time to time, for I am not on
confidential terms with any other member of the council. From Hiridia
and my friends of the nobility I can gather absolutely nothing, for the
simple reason that their own ignorance of the private affairs of their
ruling caste is even greater than mine. Indeed, the marvel is that I
have been able to compile even the small amount I have inscribed
here, considering the obstacles in my way of acquiring knowledge. I
must sum up therefore by stating that I have very little
communication with that body of councillors with whom my own
position and prerogative are so closely interwoven, this state of
affairs being due wholly to the persistent refusal of the latter to take
me into their confidence.
IX
Of the nobility I can speak with more confidence, for with many of
them I am on terms of intimacy and friendship. The well-bred
gentleman is not confined in our own world to any special climate or
nation, for he is to be found equally under a white, a yellow, a brown
and even a black skin; and the gentle type is also indigenous on the
planet of Meleager.
The aristocracy of Meleager is closely connected with the land, and it
is to some extent strongly impregnated with feudal principles. Every
noble is either the owner of an estate, be it large, moderate or small,
or else is connected by family ties with the actual landowner. Each
house forms a distinctive gens in itself, and all its male members are
entitled to bear a badge, which is its peculiar mark. These badges at
first suggested to my mind a relic of totem-kin, but I soon changed
my opinion on this point, and now hold the family badge to be
heraldic in its aim and use. I gather that the adoption of a
conspicuous badge or emblem for each family is of considerable
antiquity, and perhaps derives from reports made by the Meleagrian
envoys on Earth at the period of the Crusades, when coat-armour
came into fashion among the chivalry of Western Christendom.
The mass of the nobles exhibits various degrees of wealth and
influence, and I have noted the existence of some ill-feeling between
the leading magnates and the smaller landowners. The social
cleavage between the two sets is however imperceptible, and the
constant intermarriage between the families of what I may call the
major and the minor barons tends to eradicate many cases of
jealousy. This landed aristocracy has, of course, its chief residence
in the country districts, though the wealthier families possess houses
in the cities in addition. The country house of Meleager is usually of
moderate size, and consists of a low square white-washed mansion
enclosing a courtyard. The native love of colonnades is prominently
exhibited in these houses, which are frequently surrounded on all
sides by loggias that can be utilised according to the varying
conditions of weather. The arrangements within are somewhat
primitive according to our own luxurious standards of the twentieth
century, but they are not without a sufficiency of comfort. The floors
are generally tiled; there are no rugs or carpets, save some skins of
beasts; the furniture, though often elaborately carved, is not plentiful.
There are no family portraits, for the art of painting pictures is
unknown, but in compensation for this defect there is always the
curious family chapel or mausoleum. This has usually a low domed
roof pierced by windows of coloured glass that admit only a dim light
within the chamber which seems very similar to the columbaria of the
Romans, from whom I conclude this idea has been borrowed by their
unknown admirers. Rows of small semicircular apertures line the
walls, many of these standing empty, whilst not a few are occupied
by busts of deceased members of the family. Beneath these effigies
are placed small urns of metal or marble which contain the ashes, for
cremation has for sanitary reasons been made compulsory in
Meleager for many centuries past. Some of these busts are of no
small artistic merit, and evidently well portray the features of the
noble ancestors; others again are of inferior workmanship; whilst
some are obviously merely conventional in their treatment. Such a
collection certainly forms rather a gruesome substitute for a family
portrait gallery, but its atmosphere does not seem to depress the
spirits of the present generation, for I am always cheerfully invited to
enter and inspect these queer oratories. The surrounding gardens
are often beautiful, but are far less artificial than our own. One broad
long flagged terrace usually suffices for the family to stroll; otherwise
the paths and lawns are unkempt and neglected. These pleasances
are however full of a luxuriant growth of wild or half-wild flowers, so
that I found myself often being reminded of the exuberant gardens of
old-world Italian villas in past days, before the late irruption of
wealthy cosmopolitan tourists had succeeded in thoroughly
vulgarising Italy and modernising all its old peaceful haunts.
Country life as pursued in Meleager varies little in its essence from
that of our Earth, mutatis mutandis, for time is pretty evenly divided
between the attractions of sport and the claims of estate
management and domestic concerns. Everything is, of course,
conducted in a manner that would appear as primitive to our
pampered sportsmen as it would seem suggestive to the antiquary,
for both field sports and agriculture have remained here in the
mediæval, or even sometimes in the archaic, stage of development.
Firearms, though not unknown, are at least never employed, so that
in hunting the spear, the net, the trap and even the bow still
constitute the chief weapons of the chase. All ploughing is performed
by oxen with wooden implements, and the thorough cultivation of the
crops is on a tiny scale. Again and again have the conditions of
Meleagrian rural life recalled to me the old-world bucolic practices of
Tuscany and Castile, that even down to the close of the nineteenth
century retained so many picturesque features of remote classical
times. The tenor of existence in the country is quiet enough, and
would prove unspeakably dull and irksome to the majority of our
modern squires; but it must be remembered that the Meleagrian
landowners have no newspapers, no novels, no Stock Exchange, no
party politics to sweeten and distract their daily round, so that they
are perfectly content to follow in the secure footsteps of their
forefathers. Should the younger men find the calm routine of country
life wearisome, there are other avenues of occupation open to such
restless souls. In the first place there is the army, which is officered
solely by members of the aristocracy, some of whom make a
permanent profession of their military duties and attain in due course
to the higher commands therein. The usual plan is, however, for the
younger sons of the noble houses to spend some three or four years
in the army, after which they marry and come to settle in homes of
their own, where they busy themselves for the rest of their lives with
a medley of sport, agriculture and domestic economy. Again, the life
at Court is open to a certain number of those who care neither for a
career in the army nor for the monotony of the countryside. Here
they participate in the constant variety of the palace, and hope to win
honorary appointments in the royal household. A few, more
adventurous still than their fellows, proceed to Barbaria either for the
purpose of better hunting, or for the sake of the harder and more
exciting life in a new sphere of energy. Some proportion of these
latter obtain grants of land in this less than half-occupied territory,
where they found new estates modelled on the old lines, much as
the younger scions of our gentle English houses emigrated and
settled in Virginia. Such experiments moreover are strongly
commended and encouraged by the special councillors who are
charged with the conduct of colonial affairs.
Yet another and a far more important means of escape from the
alleged tedium of family or rustic routine is the career of the
probationer, who aspires eventually to be elected a member of the
hierarchy. This ambition cannot, however, be gratified before the age
of thirty, when the intending candidate is admitted to the school of
the neophytes. Here for a year he receives a course of lectures on
Meleagrian history and is taught the rudiments of Latin grammar, but
no instruction in reading or writing is yet afforded him. At the end of a
twelvemonth of such preliminary training, the neophyte is either
rejected as unfit or unsuitable, or else he is admitted a probationer of
the seminary attached to the Temple of the Sun. In that case he
receives a five years' course of far more advanced tuition; he is
taught to read, write and speak the Latin language; and presumably
he is also instructed in astronomy, politics, theology and other
subjects concerning which his existing notions must be strangely
vague or wholly erroneous. This long period of instruction entails a
severe strain on the pupil, who is henceforth cut off from all private
and external ties and interests, for he is never allowed to quit the
precincts of his seminary. Of his final election and reception into the
council of the hierarchy I have spoken elsewhere. Whether or no any
candidate has ever failed to obtain his election and has been
consequently compelled to remain in the institution for years,
perhaps for the term of his lifetime, I cannot say; yet I do know for a
fact that for its inmates there is but one door leading out of the
seminary of probationers and that is the door which admits to the
council chamber.
I always enjoy my occasional visits to the country seats of the
nobility, where the calm useful healthy life affords an agreeable
change to me from the atmosphere of the palace, which seems
always charged with mystery and intrigue. The genuine greeting of
my host and the members of his family, the delightful blend of divine
honours and of frank hospitality wherewith I am everywhere
received, the pride shown in their farms and agricultural schemes,
the general air of repose and safety, all tend to soothe a mind that
has grown perplexed and wearied with the endless cares of an
exalted but anomalous office. The conversation of these uneducated
but well-bred persons is certainly not exciting, and might fairly be
described as trivial, but really I do not think, from past experience,
that it is more trifling or banal than the average talk of the British
aristocracy which of recent years has elevated sport and money-
making to be the prevalent topics of society (using that term in its
narrow technical application). And though all these excellent folk in
Meleager are of necessity quite illiterate in the sense that they
cannot read and write, their memory is marvellous, so that often after
the evening meal the different members of the household recite
whole poems in the Meleagrian language, or else tell stories that are
by no means devoid of wit and imagination. Often too there is
singing to the native lute of sweet melodious songs, which are well
rendered by the fresh voices of the young performers.
The land tenure of Meleager may perhaps be best described as a
modified form of primogeniture. The family estate, whether large or
small, descends in tail male, and only in the failure of masculine
issue in the whole family to the female heirs of the last possessor.
This strict entail is, however, subject to certain limitations, which tend
to allow provision for the widow and daughters of the landowner.
Moreover, all members of the family have a species of life interest in
the estate, so long as they continue unmarried. Thus on the death of
a father, the eldest-born will inherit, but the new owner's younger
brothers (and also his unmarried uncles), if still residing under the
family roof, own the right to remain in their old home. Patriarchal life
in this manner becomes highly developed, and the family council
consisting of all its male and all its unmarried female members can
exercise considerable power over all private affairs within the scope
of the family circle. Thus the expulsion of an unworthy relative can
be arranged, and this inherent family rule is admitted and upheld by
the hierarchy. A noble thus expelled forfeits his right to bear the
family badge, and also has to relinquish the crimson cloak and tunic
of his order. A member so degraded sinks automatically into the
ranks of the plebeian or third estate, and is generally lost sight of.
Such incidents are rare, but they do occur occasionally, and this
private form of prerogative to drive into social exile is undisputed.
Although a very distinct line is drawn between the Reds and the
Greens, between the noble and the mercantile classes, there seems
no contempt or envy of class on either side. Such jealousy as exists
is rather noticeable within the ranks of the aristocracy itself, wherein,
though nominally all are of equal rank, some are rich and some poor,
some influential and some of little account. And the same remark
holds good of the conditions prevailing in the mercantile class.
Taxation of the landed interest is raised in two ways: first by a direct
tax on land itself, which is apportioned at certain intervals; and
second, by a poll-tax on every noble. Occasionally a landed estate
left without any male heirs is sold for the benefit of the female
inheritors; but it is clear that in the vast majority of cases the present
estates in Meleager have descended in unbroken succession and
unreduced in area for many generations.
As to the characteristics of the Meleagrian nobles, doubtless they
have their failings, but these in my estimation are fully redeemed by
their many good qualities. There is apparent some display of
haughtiness in the higher nobility towards other less wealthy
members of their own caste, but their attitude and bearing towards
their many dependents and also towards the general populace would
be worthy of imitation even in our so-called democratic world. Of
course such intimacy as I can attain with them is necessarily limited,
when one considers my own range of knowledge and their utter
inability to grasp the meaning of any one of the many serious
questions that perpetually vex my mind. I sometimes have the
sensation of living in a world of shadows, with which I sport and even
converse, for the mental gulf fixed between me and them is
fathomless and unbridgeable. Even my Hiridia, faithful friend and
delightful companion though he be, seems often a plaything rather
than a co-equal being of the same flesh and blood as myself. I can
study all these people and analyse with ease their simple empty
minds; I can sympathise with their artless pleasures and pastimes; I
can play and sing and hunt and bathe and feast with them;—but I
cannot talk with them seriously any more than can a septuagenarian
professor carry on a rational conversation with a child. Yet all the
same they are charming grown-up children; and was it not the Divine
Master of our world who more than once insisted that to share His
promised kingdom all His grown-up hearers must become as little
children? Nevertheless, despite such consoling thoughts, the fact
remains that I am always lonely.

Of the mercantile class I intend to say very little. So much that I have
just written applies with equal force to the Greens, or second estate
of the realm. I am often entertained by the leading merchants of
Tamarida and Zapyro, but these occasions really produce little more
than the exchange of polite formalities, and I know far less of these
persons than I do of the nobility. A portion of this class is connected
with the land in the form of yeomen, or small freeholders, whose
properties are however confined to Barbaria or to the poorer districts
of the Regio Solis. In their case the law of primogeniture is enforced
more strictly than amongst the landed aristocracy, for as the
yeoman's estate is reckoned insufficient to provide for all the males
of the family, only the eldest son enjoys the paternal acres. The
younger sons are accordingly dispatched to make their living or
fortune in some trade, and it is usually the stalwart young men of this
small landed stock who supply the greater part of the petty officers in
the army. The great majority of the Greens, as they are commonly
termed, are traders either on a large or a small scale, though a
certain number fill some of the lesser official posts of stewards and
assistants in connection with the work of the hierarchy. In the case of
members of this order who have amassed considerable wealth and
are desirous of entering the class of the nobles, application is made
to the council, and such appeals are either granted or refused after a
full hearing of the circumstances. The royal consent is likewise
necessary for the bestowal of this coveted privilege; and I may add
that such applications constitute the sole exception to the general
rule, that the nobles are never given to intrigue with myself. Naturally
they are jealous concerning the prerogative of their order, and some
at least are certain to resent fiercely any such attempts of outsiders
to be admitted to their ranks. A good many of such appeals are
rejected, but in the event of a successful application a large
contribution has to be paid to the coffers of the temple and the
palace; a landed estate has somehow to be purchased, usually in
Barbaria, and then the fortunate postulant doffs the green robes and
dons the red, which he is now permitted to wear, and also assumes
the use of a badge granted him by the King, who selects the emblem
he deems most suitable. The position of the new-comers for a
considerable time, perhaps for a couple of generations, is not an
enviable one, for they are treated coldly and looked at askance by
the majority of their fellow-nobles. But as the older folk pass away,
and memories grow shorter, the new lord, or rather his progeny,
becomes gradually absorbed by matrimonial connection into the
mass of the nobility, and intermingles with the rest. Still, the stigma of
having risen from the Greens clings, I fancy, to this type of pseudo-
aristocratic house for a long time. On the other hand, marriage with a
junior member of the nobility at once confers the husband's rank on
a bride of the second estate, who henceforth ceases to hold open
intercourse with her own family. Contrariwise, ladies of the nobility
who ally themselves with merchants or yeomen sink to the level of
their husbands' station.

With the populace again I have more intimacy and sympathy than
with the Greens, and through my attendants and bodyguard at the
palace I am brought more closely into touch with the people at large.
This third estate of the realm consists of all the manual labourers,
the artisans, the fisher-folk, and in short all such persons as live by
receiving wages, whether in money or kind. I have already hinted
that their condition and well-being form the constant care of the
councillors, who see that their homes are sanitary, well built and
generally adequate, whilst the wages paid must be deemed sufficient
to support the individual or his family in decency and comfort. In fact,
the supervision of this, the largest and economically the most
important section of the community, constitutes the first care of the
hierarchy. The people seem hale and happy, nor do they exhibit any
envy of the better-fed and better-clad Greens, nor yet of the majestic
and privileged Reds. The rules of family life prevail less strongly here
owing to the wider dispersal of its members, but they are nominally
identical with those in the classes above. There are no law courts in
Meleager, and usually disputes and difficulties in this class are
settled, as I have already shown, in the judgment hall of the capital,
where I sit on most days. The women-folk of the third estate live in
less seclusion than do those of the nobility and merchants, a result
that is due (as in our Mohammedan countries) to the necessity of the
poor having to perform their marketing and daily business in public.
This same class also may be said to include the numerous tribe of
indentured labourers, mostly from Barbaria, whose status somewhat
resembles that of the Roman slaves under the Empire. Vice and
drunkenness, though by no means unfrequent, are not conspicuous
in this class; whilst the police patrols keep a pretty sharp eye on the
landlords of the lower sort of wine-shop and brothel. These resorts of
the more dissipated of the people are also visited at times by the
councillors charged with their management and reputation, so that
the streets of Tamarida at night would compare favourably with those
of most European cities, and such debauchery as does exist is
assuredly kept well concealed behind doors and is not allowed to
offend the eyes or the ears of the passer-by in the streets, which,
though dark and narrow, can be safely traversed by all after nightfall.
A few cases of quarrelling and use of the knife occur and are
severely punished by the lash whenever the culprits are brought to
book; deliberate murder is very rare; theft is not frequent; assaults on
women and children are practically unknown. So far as my
observations tend, I can sum up without hesitation by saying that the
proletariat of Meleager is a remarkably happy, healthy, well-behaved,
industrious and sober body under what I may call the benign
despotism of councillors who have not only been educated to
command by years of special training, but also possess a natural gift
for such functions.
X
I should not like the reader from anything I have written hitherto to
carry away the impression that, because I am myself debarred from
their society, the women of Meleager own a status at all similar to
that prevailing in Mohammedan countries. On the contrary, setting
aside the exceptional case of their semi-divine monarch, the sex has
little to lament on the score of inferior or unfair treatment. The
Council of Seventy, it is true, contains no female element, but to
balance this, the college of the priestesses of the Sun, which I shall
describe presently, wields considerable powers in the government of
the state. Moreover, the severe restrictions concerning their relations
with the King rest, at least nominally, on religious grounds and would
therefore naturally be less likely to cause resentment. I think
therefore I had better first discuss the existing attitude of my female
subjects towards myself, for on this point I can at least offer some
correct and detailed information, both from personal knowledge and
as the result of inquiries I have from time to time cautiously ventured
to make of the older women, with whom alone I am permitted to hold
social intercourse.
No unimportant part of the religious training which every girl receives
at her mother's knee in Meleager is the Sun Myth, with its
picturesque fables of the Sun-god and his incarnated Child. The
divine nature and mission of the latter are always dwelt on by the
teacher with particular insistence and with due solemnity; and his
sanctity is described as placing him outside the pale of ordinary men
with ordinary passions. And not only this. Should the Child of the
Sun forget the sacred character of his entrusted mission to his
father's people and flout his father's precepts so far as to stoop to
philander with any maiden of his kingdom, not only will the
disobedient monarch incur his divine parent's grave displeasure, but
also a most terrible fate awaits the unhappy object of his attentions.
From this last portion of the advice instilled into the growing female
mind, I conclude that alarming scandals have actually occurred in
the past; and who can marvel at it? But how recent or remote are
these love intrigues in date; and how or where or when they were
detected and punished I am quite ignorant, nor am I ever likely to
receive enlightenment thereon. But it is also in harmony with my
theory of past troubles of this nature that a salutary story (which is by
no means regarded here as a legend) has long been in circulation.
The tale itself is strongly reminiscent of the old Greek myth of Zeus
and Semele, and in Meleager it takes the shape of an intrigue
between a foolish maiden of the people, Anata by name, and the
then reigning Child of the Sun, who fell a victim to her charms or her
advances. For it is gravely related that Anata actually made her way
to the private apartments of the King by stealth. Whether or no she
obtained any satisfaction from her forbidden interview will never be
known, but it is certain her body was found next morning in the royal
bed-chamber charred and almost unrecognisable as the dire result
of her clandestine embraces in the arms of the son of the God of
Fire. To become the mistress therefore of the Sun-child, should the
monarch descend so low as to forget his divine calling, is but the
certain prelude to an ignominious and horrible death; and such a
belief is firmly held by all women dwelling on Meleager. It is also
pronounced dangerous (as it is voted most decidedly immodest) for
any young woman, whether maiden or married, to allow even the
casual glance of the Sun-child to fall full on her face; so that it is
usual for all girls to fling the light veil, or mantilla, which every
Meleagrian woman wears, over her features in the event of her
encountering accidentally the person of the King. This custom,
however, is not an actual regulation, and I have often noticed girls,
especially those of the populace, indulge in a good solid stare as I
have come riding or walking down the streets of the capital, though
sooner or later some pretence of covering the eyes with the veil was
carried out. Amongst the nobility this formal hiding of the face is
more strictly insisted on, if only as a detail of good breeding. From
what I have seen, the young women of Meleager are short, dark and
comely, with fine brown merry eyes, small features, and dark hair. In
extreme youth they are often remarkably pretty and attractive, but
after child-birth they are very liable to lose their elegant symmetry,
and to find what was an agreeable plumpness exchanged for a
rather prominent bulkiness of figure.
I have never yet so much as spoken to a woman below the age of
thirty or thereabouts, and though the fundamental law forbidding my
intimacy with any woman in the pride and beauty of her youth is
quite wise and logical, according both to the letter and the spirit of
Meleagrian state craft, yet it is a rule that presses very cruelly upon
myself. For remember, I do not grow old and languid; my own vitality
is mysteriously renewed at short intervals, and male youth craves
the society and companionship of female youth; whilst also in my
case this natural desire can never diminish with the passing of the
years. In this respect I stand therefore betwixt the devil and the deep
sea, between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, I have to curb
my juvenile longings and tastes which tend rather to grow stronger
and more insistent; whilst on the other, any attempt to circumvent
this ordinance of the hierarchy would not only end in my own
discomfiture, and possibly removal, but would most certainly result in
the miserable fate of any poor favourite of my choice. The story of
silly Anata's disgrace was not invented by the hierarchy merely to
serve as an empty fable, one may be sure of that. I feel convinced,
too, that the palace teems with spies for this very purpose of
thwarting any such intrigue, and though hitherto I have given no
cause even for suspicion, I feel my position most acutely. It is so
false, and I know it to be false, and so do those who have
manœuvred this particular piece of policy concerning their monarch.
When women have once exceeded the age of thirty (which is
considered the child-bearing limit in Meleager), and have
presumably lost all officially suspected attraction in the eyes of the
Child of the Sun, the embargo is removed, though there is never
much intercourse between the King and the middle-aged or elderly
ladies of the nobility. Whenever I honour the country home of one of
my nobles with my presence, all the young women of the household,
married or unmarried, are removed elsewhere, but such as are
above the fixed age of thirty are suffered to remain, though even in
these cases I note that I am seldom left alone with women, no matter
what their age. No doubt the female mind, so strongly imbued in
childhood with the inherent mystical terrors of their monarch, still
shrinks with awe from too close proximity with such a force of
potential danger. Possibly, however, I may err on this point, and in
reality some ancient notion of etiquette unknown to me is being
served by this noticeable self-effacement on the part of the older
women. Of course, the deference wherewith I am treated by the
male folk is intensified in the case of the ladies, who regard me much
in the same light that a bigoted Catholic would regard a tangible
apparition of St Peter or St Paul in their houses.
Politically, women possess no rights, but then no more do the men,
except the handful who compose the executive council, so they
cannot well complain of invidious treatment on this score, even were
they anxious to discover grievances of sex. As with the historic
Prussian queen, their empire admittedly lies in the nursery, for all
children are completely under the charge of their mothers according
to immemorial custom. In the nobility the tacit law seems to be that
the man is master outside the house, whilst the woman is mistress
within doors; and this maxim is generally acted upon throughout all
spheres of social life. Women are exempt from the poll-tax, which is
levied on all males, and indeed no taxes are exacted from women at
all, except in the rare and transitory instances of unmarried
heiresses of landed estates. Whether or no, vague, restless,
unsatisfied aspirations and longings occasionally assail the minds of
some of the younger men I cannot say for certain; but I do feel sure
that the womanhood of Meleager is absolutely satisfied with its
present lot and cannot so much as conceive of any betterment of
existing conditions. The conversations I have had with the wives or
sisters of my hosts at different times were usually of a rather stilted
and uninteresting nature; but I never failed to note their supreme
content and buoyant cheerfulness.
Nevertheless, although women have never been admitted into the
ranks of the hierarchy, and presumably never will be, yet they
possess a species of council of their own sex in the college of the
priestesses of the Sun, who inhabit a large block of buildings
contiguous to the great temple. This institution is based on rules
somewhat similar to those which prevail in the Council of the
Seventy, but it is worked and administered on broader lines, and the
age limit is not so strictly drawn as in the case of the hierarchy. Girls
who have no desire or vocation for matrimony may enter the portals
of this convent (if I may so term it) as novices; nor is the acceptance
of applicants confined to one social class, as is the rule concerning
the probationers of the hierarchy. On the contrary, a fair proportion of
the inmates of this convent are drawn from the middle and lower
classes, and thus the atmosphere of the convent is of a distinctly
democratic type. Even the highest office of all, that of Domina, or
lady abbess, is occasionally attained by a plebeian, for the rules of
election here are carefully compiled so as to secure the choice of the
most popular and capable of the candidates. The senior ladies of the
convent are kept in constant touch with the members of the council,
who frequently apply to the priestesses of the Sun for advice in
various matters of a social and remedial nature, which may be
deemed expedient. Thus all regulations concerning the welfare of
women and children have been carefully scrutinised and approved
by the Domina and her assessors before ever they are enforced by
the officials of the council. But how closely and on what lines the
temple and the convent work together is of course beyond my
knowledge, though it is evident that the two institutions are
conducted in apparent harmony with one another.
XI
It is scarcely fair to offer any comparison between the moral
progress as shown in Meleager and that prevailing on the Earth, and
in any case such a comparison would prove impossible, seeing how
varied and how complex are the many moral systems of the greater
planet. With our numerous nationalities it is only logical there should
result great diversities of opinion on ethics, and we are made to
realise our difficulty in estimating any average sum-total of earthly
morals to bring into the field of comparison. Has not one writer of
note averred that the views of sexual morality held by the phallic
worshippers of old and by the extreme Puritans of to-day rest equally
on a common religious foundation? And has not our British poet of
empire somewhere written that
"The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandù,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban"?
In the instance of my own kingdom the many defunct and surviving
systems of the nations of the Earth have all been studied and have
doubtless been partially adapted here and there, so that in a sense
the Meleagrian outlook on morals is extremely interesting, as
affording the result of careful unprejudiced investigation over a wide
space of time. But of course the outcome of these secret researches
and deductions cannot possibly be agreeable or obvious to any one
people or set of thinkers on Earth, for it will be remembered that
whereas the Earth is a congeries of tribes and climates and faiths, so
Meleager is homogeneous, unless one takes into account the colder
and almost unexplored parts of Barbaria. And thus, as the
consequence of careful study for many, many generations by acute
well-trained intellects, a sort of eclecticism has been created here in
the field of morals, as has already arisen in the case of religious
tenets.
Here there are no hard and fast rules on moral behaviour, but each
individual is supposed to be guided by his or her instincts, which it is
considered expedient to depress or encourage, according to the
benefit or damage that may accrue thereby to society at large, or to
the state, if you prefer to regard it as such. The open exhibition of
harmful instincts then is looked on by the ruling caste of Meleager as
an occasion not for punishment but for segregation; such tendencies
in themselves being disregarded so long as they are practised in
secret and kept, as it were, under personal control. And here I am
speaking only of traits and tendencies, not of actual crimes, of fraud
or violence, for the punishment of which there exists a severe code
based apparently on the Mosaic laws. A cold-blooded murder is
repaid by a death penalty, which is carried out privately in the case of
a nobleman, by beheadal in prison of a merchant, and by public
hanging in the case of a plebeian. Crimes of assault are met with
strokes from the lash coupled with a fine; outrages on children are
punished by death. But vile crimes and executions are very rare
indeed, and this highly desirable state of things I attribute to the long
period wherein the rulers of Meleager have been gradually
eliminating the feeble-minded and evil-disposed members of the
community by their careful and judicious system of segregation.
Other cases of wrong-doing of a more venial type are usually met by
a scale of fines, which are intended to compensate the injured party
for any damage he may have incurred; whilst minor instances of
violence or disturbance of the peace are frequently punished by an
order to administer a certain number of lashes there and then in
open court, this penalty being not uncommonly awarded to drunken
or refractory persons belonging to the seafaring, peddling, long-
shore and such humbler sections of the populace.
Thanks again to the past measures taken to repress crime and to
ensure good behaviour, the physical health of the kingdom leaves
almost nothing to be desired. Epidemic diseases are practically
unknown, as are also contagious venereal maladies. It is the
constant, and possibly rather trying and officious, visitations made by
the sanitary inspectors into every homestead, small or great,
patrician or plebeian, which have doubtless helped to induce this
highly commendable condition of affairs. Disease and dirt are the
two evils which are attacked without rest or mercy by the councillors
appointed for their control, and by their equally energetic
representatives. Cleanliness is not reckoned as next to godliness in
Meleager; it is an inherent part of religion itself, and hygienic
regulations are perpetually being enforced upon what is now become
a willing, though no doubt in past times it was an unwilling,
population. I suppose many English Puritans would look askance at
the thermal establishments which exist both in the cities and in the
rural districts, seeing that the two sexes have here opportunities of
studying one another in a nude state; but then, as I have said before,
Meleagrian morals do not exist for morality's sake, but have
evidently been framed for the special purpose of securing a healthy
vigorous race. Early marriage is encouraged, but, paradoxical as it
may appear, large families are not considered desirable; whilst there
is a curious custom which permits of a husband no longer cohabiting
with his wife after she has borne him three children living. I have
heard that this eccentric, and no doubt to many offensive, notion also
prevails in the upper ranks of the civilised Latin races, though
possibly my informant may have been mistaken in his statement. I
gather that such a tacit understanding has its origin in the fear of
over-population, and certainly the limited land surface of Meleager
possessing a desirable climate may plead as a reasonable excuse
for the holding of this whimsical tenet, which seems to savour of the
school of Malthus. Apparently the growth of population in Meleager
is somewhat analogous to that of modern France, and seeing the
high place in which French philosophy and culture are held by the
leading nations of the Earth, the Meleagrians are at least erring in
good company.
Turning to the coarser side of the question of public morals,
prostitution exists, but neither to a great extent nor openly. Those
who can recall the nocturnal conditions of the main London
thorough-fares during the latter part of Queen Victoria's reign would
be agreeably surprised to detect no outward flaunting of vice after
dusk in the streets of Tamarida; and the least tendency to riot or
disturbance is promptly quelled by the military patrols. Not that
licence and debauchery do not abound, for there are, I believe,
plenty of resorts of a certain class in the towns; but the doings of
such places do not rise to the surface, and those who frequent them
dare not offend the quiet of their neighbours.
Meanwhile the priestesses of the Sun are constantly busied with the
ultimate fate of the harlot, and their emissaries are often engaged in
reclaiming girls from a licentious career and in training them to
become useful wives, for such early lapses are held lightly by the
mass of the people. And in not a few instances these "filles de joie"
become wedded to their paramours, and make good mothers. Such
an outlook is of course utterly unmoral to large sections of the
civilised and Christianised nations of Europe and America; but the
Meleagrian view is shared by many other races of the Earth who
have enjoyed a longer and perhaps a better record of civilisation
than have these complacent modern nations whose ancestors were
half-naked savages in the days of the Roman Empire. Universal
chastity, in short, is a feature almost exclusively confined to northern
tribes of barbarians, for whom it has great natural advantages
certainly, for it tends to breed a hardy and prolific race. But I do not
think it can be classed as a genuine virtue in itself, and it always
tends promptly to disappear the moment the trammels of education
and development are assumed. Now the Meleagrians can lay claim
to be an intensely civilised race, whereby I mean their rulers have
been engaged in the study of the arts of peace and progress for
many centuries, and have consequently left behind them the old
barbarian necessity for absolute chastity, though they still recognise
its value as a wholesome ingredient of married family life. For with
marriage chastity in their eyes takes on another aspect, which must
not be confounded with the former, and that is faithfulness. A
faithless wife is very rare indeed in Meleager, and her treatment at
the hands of her neighbours is not enviable.
XII
Religion has already entered so significantly into my narrative that I
feel I must apologise for a special dissertation on this subject. Yet I
have never so far described the exact nature or scope of the
Meleagrian faith which may be said to permeate and regulate the
whole private and public existence of the people.
The inhabitants of Meleager—and in the ensuing statements, of
course, I always except the hierarchy—are worshippers of the Sun,
who is their sole deity. He is visible to them for a large portion of
almost each day; he is tangible, in so far as they can feel the warmth
of his beams; he is alive and in constant motion, as they watch him
"ride the heavens like a horse" and disappear into the waters of the
western sea only to uprear again next morning above the eastern
horizon. As in the old Greek mythos, the Sun is popularly supposed
to drive his golden chariot with its flaming wheels and with its yoke of
fretting stallions across the dome of heaven, till finally god and car
alike pass over the containing rim of the Meleagrian world. Below the
flat surface of the land and sea the Sun-god inhabits a vast palace,
whose splendours far exceed anything known to men. Here he rests
after his daily labours amongst his numerous progeny, and refreshes
himself after his late exertions undertaken solely for the benefit of the
favoured race, that in the illimitable past he created in his own
image. The firmament is his field of action; the space below the
ground is his haven of retirement. At night the dome of heaven shorn
of his effulgent presence is lighted only by the sparkling stars;
"jewels of the Sun," as they are termed in Meleagrian parlance; or
else the great vacant arc is illumined by the sickly lustre of the Moon.
For the Moon stands to the Meleagrian mind, as it did largely to the
antique and mediæval imagination, for all that is uncanny and
malign. Few Meleagrians will walk abroad in clear moonlight, if they
can reasonably avoid so doing; and in the many tales and legends
that are current the Moon in her various phases and with her evil
influence always occupies a prominent place. The oldest legend
concerning the Moon, that is a legend parallel with such theories as
the origin of the rainbow or the story of the Ark on Mount Ararat of
the Jewish Pentateuch, relates how in the days of chaos there were
two Suns, rivals, who fought one another for the possession of the
beautiful world of Meleager; and that after a titanic combat, wherein
the heavens thundered and the mountains belched forth fire and
smoke, and the waters tossed and hissed furiously, the benign Sun
conquered and slew the opposing deity, whose dead body still floats
abroad in the sky, wherein it serves as an eternal trophy to the
prowess of the victor. In the popular imagination however the corpse
of the vanquished Moon is not wholly impotent for ill. A scintilla of
mischievous vitality is still believed to lurk in its form, during the
hours of the night, what time the Sun himself is absent from the
heavens. The average Meleagrian therefore has a peculiar dread of
the night, and of a moonlit night in a special degree. The practice of
magic, both of the black and white types, is fairly common in all
ranks of Meleagrian society, and its preparations and philtres are
always popularly associated with the period of the Moon's fulness,
when that deity's surviving spark of life is deemed most active.
The cult of the Meleagrians for the Sun not only recognises his vital
warmth and fructifying properties, but also attributes to him the
gathering or dispersal of the clouds which drop the refreshing rain
upon the thirsty soil and swell the opening buds of tree and plant.
The winds are also under the Sun's control, and are apparently
regarded as his offspring, who sometimes disobey their august
parent's injunctions, and either sportively or maliciously vex the
people of Meleager with unwelcome gales that imperil the fisher-folk
at sea, and injure the springing crops on land. But speaking broadly,
the Meleagrian is of St James's opinion that "every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
Lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning." And
in truth the unchangeable benignity and faithfulness of the Sun-god