Quotation from: The Chessmen of Mars

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs


Carried along a few hundred feet above the ground she was better
able to appreciate the Titanic proportions of the storm than when
she had flown in the comparative serenity of the zone above the
clouds, for now she could distinctly see the effect of the wind
upon the surface of Barsoom. The air was filled with dust and
flying bits of vegetation and when the storm carried her across
an irrigated area of farm land she saw great trees and stone
walls and buildings lifted high in air and scattered broadcast
over the devastated country; and then she was carried swiftly on
to other sights that forced in upon her consciousness a rapidly
growing conviction that after all Tara of Helium was a very small
and insignificant and helpless person. It was quite a shock to
her self-pride while it lasted, and toward evening she was ready
to believe that it was going to last forever. There had been no
abatement in the ferocity of the tempest, nor was there
indication of any. She could only guess at the distance she had
been carried for she could not believe in the correctness of the
high figures that had been piled upon the record of her odometer.
They seemed unbelievable and yet, had she known it, they were
quite true--in twelve hours she had flown and been carried by the
storm full seven thousand haads. Just before dark she was carried
over one of the deserted cities of ancient Mars. It was Torquas,
but she did not know it. Had she, she might readily have been
forgiven for abandoning the last vestige of hope, for to the
people of Helium Torquas seems as remote as do the South Sea
Islands to us. And still the tempest, its fury unabated, bore her
on.

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