Everybody went either on foot or in air ships.
There were no carriages, except a kind of palanquin, some running on
wheels and others borne by hand.
"I should think they would have autos," said Jack, "with all their
science and ingenuity which Edmund admires so much."
But there was not a sign of anything resembling an auto; the silence of
the crowded streets was startling, and made the scene more dreamlike.
Everybody appeared to be shod with some noise-absorbing material. We
strolled along, turning corners with blissful carelessness, staring and
being stared at (for, of course, everybody knew who we were), peering
into open doors and the gaping fronts of bazaars, chattering like a
couple of boys making their first visit to a city, and becoming every
moment more hopelessly, though unconsciously, lost, and more interested
by what we saw. The astonishing display of pleasing colors and the
brilliancy of everything fascinated us. I had never seen anything
comparable to this in beauty, variety, and richness. We passed a market
where we saw some of the bright-plumaged birds that we had eaten at our
first repast hung up for sale.
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