Mounted
troops, their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leather
glistening in the sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, and
then came a thousand gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars.
These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either side
of them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariots
were the women and children of the royal court. Upon the back
of each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scene
carried me back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two years
in the past, when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of a
caravan of the green horde of Tharks.
Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red men.
These brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immense
height even beside the giant green men and their giant thoats;
but when compared to the relatively small red man and his breed
of thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly
appalling.
The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gay
silk, embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds,
pearls, rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars,
while from each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers,
flags, and pennons fluttered in the breeze.
Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upon
a pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and after
them came interminable ranks of mounted spearmen, riflemen, and
swordsmen.
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