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This," he said, "is the 550th year of the Commune, and the coin was minted in 1876. It's exactly six hundred years old, and looks as fresh as if it was coined yesterday. How did you come by it?" he asked.

"I can't explain just now," I said, “but I will do so at some future time."

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Upon my word you look as if you had been asleep for five or six hundred years. Your dress, I believe, is that of the nineteenth century. Is this a lark?”

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'No, indeed! the whole thing is real enough," I replied, thinking of my lost wife and children. "Real enough," and I stooped over the edge of the boat to conceal my emotion. We had risen to a great height in the air. We were, I should think, quite five hundred yards from the earth. We were now passing over a stretch of corn-fields and meadow-land, which was dotted with clumps of trees and herds of cattle.

Issuing from a forest, which looked like a

dark spot, ran a small stream, which wound through the corn-field and meadow-land like a silver line. We were past it in a moment, for we were travelling quickly.

"Here comes the Tiger,' "exclaimed the person who had spoken of the "Tiger" before.

I heard the clanging noise which accompanies the machine's movement to our right, and, on looking in that direction, beheld an aërial machine like a winged tiger in design. It was bearing down towards us. So soon as we reached the line of its flight we poised on our wings until the "Tiger" was ready, and then, at the shout of "eyes out," shot off at a breathless speed. The "Harpy" and the

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Tiger" were racing. The greatest eagerness was manifested by the occupants of each boat, and bets were freely offered and taken upon the result.

"One to two, Mary, that the 'Tiger' wins," said one person to another.

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Taken," was the reply, as the bet was

noted.

I looked carefully at "Mary." It was the young person who had made the remark about "ancestor's" fashion. Looking at her more carefully I saw that what I had mistaken for a young man was really a young woman. It is true that she was dressed like the other occupants of the boat; her hair was short; that she was smoking; in all these respects unlike a woman, yet there was a look in her face and some ornaments upon her dress which suggested that she was a woman. I thought now I could see other women among the company, and afterwards learned that I was not mistaken.

CHAPTER V.

AERIAL MACHINES.

THERE was a sensible increase in the speed of the "Harpy." We were moving through the air at the rate of a mile in, say, fifty seconds. The "Tiger" kept well with us for a time. She was within a hundred yards of us, and I was able to measure the rapidity of our flight by the aid of the more striking features of the landscape. As our increased speed caused me a little inconvenience, I stretched myself carefully along the side of the car, which was protected with a strong netting, and looked over the edge down upon the panorama below me. In looking downward from the vast altitude at which we were travelling, I experienced unusual feelings;

but, knowing that I was perfectly safe, I persevered until they were entirely overcome. When this desirable state was reached, I enjoyed our flight immensely. We flew over towns and cities, which appeared and disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. Great stretches of corn-fields, broken by patches of forests, girded by cities and towns, dazzled the eye. The earth was like a vast and wellordered garden. That which chiefly arrested attention was the absence of small towns and villages.

my

"What place is this?" I asked of my companion, the stranger in the toga, who had been addressed as "Citizen Woolly." We were approaching a large city containing, I thought, upwards of half a million of people." "That is

"Impossible!" I exclaimed; "I thought it contained only a population of two thousand."

"That must have been six or seven hun