But
they are little used except by the hunters, partly because the danger
is thought too great, partly because they cannot rise more than about
4000 feet from the sea-level with a rider, and within that height
there are few places worth reaching that cannot be reached more
safely. People used to harness them to balloons till we found means to
drive these by electricity--the last great invention in the way of
locomotion, which I think was completed within my grandfather's
memory."
"And," I asked, "have you no animals employed in actually cultivating
the soil?"
"No," she replied, "except the weeding birds of whom I have told you.
When we have a piece of ground too small for our electric ploughs, we
sometimes set them to break it up, and they certainly reduce the soil
to a powder much finer than that produced by the machine."
"I should like to see those machines at work."
"Well," answered Eveena, "I have no doubt we shall pass more than one
of them on our way."
As she said this we reached the great road I had crossed on my
arrival, and turning up this for a short distance, sufficient,
however, to let me perceive that it led to the seaport town of which I
have spoken, we came to a break in the central footpath, just wide
enough to allow us to pass.
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