sibilant monosyllable--S.Si, equivalent to "Welcome."

The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, and heaped a golden
platter before me from one of the dishes.

While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more
at the delicacy than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions
conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance
of any direct reference to myself, or any obtrusive scrutiny of my
appearance. Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the human
race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently
regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal phenomenon. But all
rudeness is unknown to this people, and the youngest child is taught to
despise any vehement emotional demonstration. When the meal was ended,
my guide again took me by the hand, and, re-entering the gallery,
touched a metallic plate inscribed with strange figures, and which I
rightly conjectured to be of the nature of our telegraphs. A platform
descended, but this time we mounted to a much greater height than in the
former building, and found ourselves in a room of moderate dimensions,
and which in its general character had much that might be familiar to
the associations of a visitor from the upper world. There were shelves
on the wall containing what appeared to be books, and indeed were so;
mostly very small, like our diamond duodecimos, shaped in the fashion
of our volumes, and bound in sheets of fine metal. There were several
curious-looking pieces of mechanism scattered about, apparently models,
such as might be seen in the study of any professional mechanician. Four
automata (mechanical contrivances which, with these people, answer the
ordinary purposes of domestic service) stood phantom-like at each angle
in the wall. In a recess was a low couch, or bed with pillows. A window,
with curtains of some fibrous material drawn aside, opened upon a large