DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Treasure 'Room 
 
 3PIA 
 
 Rec'cL '— jk*U^ o^ b /?4fk 
 
 Form 934— 20M— 7 35 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/voyagetomoonwithOOtuck 
 
VOYAGE TO THE MOON 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 PEOPLE OF MOROSOFIA, 
 
 OTHER LUNARIANS. 
 
 BY JOSEPH ATTERLEY. 
 
 ; It is the very error of the moon ; 
 She comes more near the earth than she was wont, 
 And makes men mad." Othello. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 ELAM BLISS, 128 BROADWAY. 
 
 1827. 
 
Southern District of New-York, ss. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the first day of November, A. D. 
 1827, in the fifty secon I /ear of the Independence of the United State* 
 of America, Elam V,'.\ <. of the said -District, hath deposited in this ofiice the 
 title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words fol- 
 lowing, to lwt : 
 
 " A Voyage to the Moon : vrith pome Account of the Manners and Cus- 
 toms, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosotia, and other Luna 
 rians. By Joseph Atterley. 
 
 " ' It is the very error of the moon ; 
 
 She comes more near the earth than she was wont, 
 And makes men mad.' — Olhcllo." 
 
 In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, 
 " An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, 
 Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the 
 times therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled "an Act, supple- 
 mentary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning! by 
 securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprie- 
 tors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the 
 benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical 
 and other prints." 
 
 FRED. J. BETTP, 
 Clerk of the Southern District if New- York: 
 
 J. Seymour, printer, John-street. 
 
f 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Atterley 's birth and education — He makes a voyage — 
 Founders off the Burman coast — Adventures in 
 that Empire — Meets with a learned Brahmin from 
 Benares, --------13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Brahmin's illness — He reveals an important secret 
 to Atterley — Curious information concerning the 
 Moon — The Glonglims — They plan a voyage to 
 the Moon, 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Brahmin and Atterley prepare for their voyage — 
 Description of their travelling- machine — Incidents 
 
 of the voyage The appearance of the earth ; 
 
 Africa; Greece — The Brahmin's speculations on 
 
 the different races of men — National character, 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Continuation of the voyage — View of Europe ; Atlan- 
 tic Ocean ; America Speculations on the future 
 
 destiny of the United States — Moral reflections — 
 Pacific Ocean — Hypothesis on the origin of the 
 Moon, 58 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The voyage continued — Second view of Asia — The 
 Brahmin's speculations concerning- India — Increase 
 of the Moon's attraction — Appearance of the Moon 
 — They land on the Moon, 75 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Some account of Morosofia, and its chief city, Alama- 
 tua — Singular dresses of the Lunar ladies — Reli- 
 gious self-denial — Glonglim miser and spendthrift, 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Physical peculiarities of the Moon — Celestial pheno- 
 mena — Farther description of the Lunarians — Na- 
 tional prejudice — Lightness of bodies — The Brah- 
 min carries Atterley to sup with a philosopher — 
 His character and opinions, - 106 
 
 «T> O A i ■ 
 
IT CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 A celebrated physician : his ingenious theories in phy- 
 sics : his mechanical inventions — The feather-hunt- 
 ing 1 Glonglim, ------- 119 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The fortune-telling- philosopher, who inspected the 
 
 finger nails: his visiters Another philosopher, 
 
 who judged of the character by the hair — The for- 
 tune-teller duped — Predatory warfare, - - 130 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The travellers visit a gentleman farmer, who is a great 
 projector: his breed of cattle : his apparatus for 
 cooking — He is taken dangerously ill, - - 143 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Lunarian physicians: their consultation — While they 
 
 dispute the patient recovers The travellers visit 
 
 the celebrated teacher Lozzi Pozzi, - - - 155 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Election of the Numnoonce, or town-constable — Vio- 
 lence of parties — Singular institution of the Syringe 
 Boys The prize-fighters Domestic manufac- 
 tures, no 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Description of the Happy Valley — The laws, customs, 
 and manners of the Okalbians — Theory of popula- 
 tion — Rent — System of government, - 184 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Further account of Okalbia — The Field of Roses — 
 Curious superstition concerning that flower — The 
 pleasures of smell traced to association, by a Glon- 
 glim philosopher, - - - - - - 197 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Atterlev goes to the great monthly fair — Its various 
 exhibitions; difficulties — Preparations to leave the 
 Moon — Curiosities procured by Atterlev — Regress 
 to the Earth, - - - - - • - - 209 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Brahmin gives Atterley a history of his life, - 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Brahmin's story continued The voyage con- 
 cluded — Atterley and the Brahmin separate — At- 
 terley arrives in New- York, ... - 240 
 
APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 Having, by a train of fortunate circumstances, accom- 
 plished a voyage, of which the history of mankind 
 affords no example ; having, moreover, exerted every 
 faculty of body and mind, to make my adventures use- 
 ful to my countrymen, and even to mankind, by impart- 
 ing to them the acquisition of secrets in physics and 
 morals, of which they had not formed the faintest con- 
 ception,— I flattered myself that both in the character 
 of traveller and public benefactor, I had earned for 
 myself an immortal name. But how these fond, these 
 justifiable hopes have been answered, the following 
 narrative will show. 
 
 On my return to this my native State, as soon as it 
 was noised abroad that I had met with extraordinary 
 adventures, and made a most wonderful voyage, crowds 
 of people pressed eagerly to see me. I at first met. 
 their inquiries with a cautious silence, which, however, 
 but sharpened their curiosity. At length I was visited 
 by a near relation, with whom I felt less disposed to 
 reserve. With friendly solicitude he inquired " how 
 
 v 
 
 
much I had made by my voyage ;" and when he was 
 informed that, although I had added to my knowledge, 
 I had not improved my fortune, he stared at me a 
 while, and remarking that he had business at the Bank, 
 as well as an appointment on 'Change, suddenly took 
 his leave. After this, I was not much interrupted by 
 the tribe of inquisitive idlers, but was visited princi- 
 pally by a few men of science, who wished to learn 
 what I could add to their knowledge of nature. To 
 this class I was more communicative ; and when I 
 severally informed them that I had actually been to the 
 Moon, some of thorn shrugged their shoulders, others 
 laughed in my face, and some were angry at my sup- 
 posed attempt to deceive them ; but all, with a single 
 exception, were incredulous. 
 
 It was to no purpose that I appealed to my former 
 character for veracity. I was answered, that travelling 
 had changed my morals, as it had changed other peo- 
 ple's. I asked what motives I could have for attempt- 
 ing to deceive them. They replied, the love of distinc- 
 tion — the vanity of being thought to have seen what 
 had been seen by no other mortal ; and they triumph- 
 antly asked me in turn, what motives Raleigh, and 
 Riley, and Hunter, and a hundred other travellers, had 
 for their misrepresentations. Finding argument thus 
 unavailing, I produced visible" and tangible proofs of 
 the truth of my narrative. I showed them a specimen 
 of moonstone. They asserted that it was of the same 
 character as those meteoric stones which had been 
 
found in every part of the world, and that 1 had merely 
 procured a piece of one of these for the purpose of 
 deception. I then exhibited some of what I considered 
 my most curious Lunar plants : but this made the mat- 
 ter worse; for it so happened, that similar ones were 
 then cultivated in Mr. Prince's garden at Flushing. I 
 next produced some rare insects, and feathers of sin- 
 gular birds: but persons were found who had either 
 seen, or read, or heard of similar insects and birds in 
 Hoo-Choo, or Paraguay, or Prince of Wales's Island. 
 In short, having made up their minds that what I said 
 was not true, they had an answer ready for all that I 
 could urge in support of my character ; and those who 
 judged most christianly, defended my veracity at the 
 expense of my understanding, and ascribed my conduct 
 to partial insanity. 
 
 There was, indeed, a short suspension to this cruel 
 distrust. An old friend coming to see me one day, and 
 admiring a beautiful crystal which I had brought from 
 the Moon, insisted on showing it to a jeweller, who 
 said that it was an unusually hard stone, and that if it 
 were a diamond, it would be worth upwards of 150,000 
 dollars. I know not whether the mistake that ensued 
 proceeded from my friend, who is something of a wag, 
 or from one of the lads in the jeweller's shop, who, 
 hearing a part of what his master had said, misappre- 
 hended the rest ; but so it was, that the next day I had 
 more visiters than ever, and among them my kinsman, 
 who was kind enough to stay with me, as if he enjoyed 
 
my good fortune, until both the Exchange and the 
 Banks were closed. On the same day, the following 
 paragraph appeared in one of the morning prints : 
 
 " We understand that our enterprising and intelligent travel- 
 " ler, Joseph Atterley, Esquire, has brought from his Lunar 
 " Expedition, a diamond of extraordinary size and lustre. Sevo- 
 " ral of the most experienced jewellers of tlus city have estimated 
 " it at from 250,000 to 300,000 dollars; and some have gone so 
 " far as to say it would be cheap at half a million. We have tbe 
 " authority of a near relative of that gentleman for asserting, 
 " that the satisfactory testimonials which he possesses of the 
 " correctness of his narrative, are sufficient to satisfy the most 
 " incredulous, and to silence malignity itself." 
 
 But this gleam of sunshine soon passed away. Two 
 days afterwards, another paragraph appeared in the 
 same paper, in these words : 
 
 "We are credibly informed, that the supposed diamond of the 
 " famous traveller to the Moon, turns out to be one of those 
 " which are found on Diamond Island, in Lake George. We 
 
 " have heard that Mr. A y means to favour the public with 
 
 " an account of his travels, under the title of ' Lunarian Adven- 
 " tures;' but we would take the liberty of recommending, that 
 " for Lunarian, he substitute ' Lmialic. ,' " 
 
 Thus disappointed in my expectations, and assailed 
 in my character, what could I do but appeal to an im- 
 partial public, by giving them a circumstantial detail of 
 what was most memorable in my adventures, that they 
 might judge, from intrinsic evidence, whether I was 
 deficient either in soundness of understanding or of 
 moral principle ? But let me first bespeak their candour, 
 
and a salutary diffidence of themselves, by one or two 
 well-authenticated anecdotes. 
 
 During the reign of Louis the XIV th, the king of 
 Siam having received an ambassador from that mo- 
 narch, was accustomed to hear, with wonder and de- 
 light, the foreigner's descriptions of his own country : 
 but the minister having one day mentioned, that in 
 France, water, at one time of the year, became a solid 
 substance, the Siamese prince indignantly exclaimed, — 
 " Hold, sir! I have listened to the strange things you 
 have told me, and have hitherto believed them all ; but 
 now when you wish to persuade me that water, which 
 I know as well as you, can become hard, I see that 
 your purpose is to deceive me, and 1 do not believe a 
 word you have uttered." 
 
 But as the present patriotic preference for home-bred 
 manufactures, may extend to anecdotes as well as to 
 other productions, a story of domestic origin may have 
 more weight with most of my readers, than one intro- 
 duced from abroad. 
 
 The chief of a party of Indians, who had visited 
 Washington during Mr. Jefferson's presidency, having, 
 on his return home, assembled his tribe, gave them a 
 detail of his adventures ; and dwelling particularly 
 upon the courteous treatment the party had received 
 from their " Great Father," stated, among other things, 
 that he had given them ice, though it was then mid- 
 summer. His countrymen, not having the vivacity of 
 our ladies, listened in silence till he had ended, when 
 
10 
 
 an aged chief stepped forth, and remarked that he loo, 
 when a young- man, had visited their Great Father 
 Washington, in New- York, who had received him as a 
 son, and treated him with all the delicacies that his 
 country afforded, but had given him no ice. " Now," 
 added the orator, " if any man in the world could have 
 made ice in the summer, it was Washington ; and if he 
 could have made it, I am sure he would have given it 
 to me. Tustanaggee is, therefore, a liar, and not to be 
 believed. " 
 
 In both these cases, though the argument seemed 
 fair, the conclusion was false ; for had either the king 
 or the chief taken the trouble to satisfy himself of the 
 tact, he might have found that his limited experience 
 had deceived him. 
 
 It is unquestionably true, that if travellers sometimes 
 impose on the credulity of mankind, they are often also 
 not believed when they speak the truth. Credulity and 
 scepticism are indeed but different names for the same 
 hasty judgment on insufficient evidence : and, as the 
 old woman readily assented that there might be 
 " mountains of sugar and rivers of rum," because she 
 had seen them both, but that there were " fish which 
 could fly," she never would believe ; so thousands give 
 credit to Redheiffers patented discovery of perpetual 
 motion, because they had beheld his machine, and 
 question the existence of the sea-serpent, because they 
 have not seen it. 
 
11 
 
 I would respectfully remind that class of my readers, 
 who, like the king, the Indian, or the old woman, re- 
 fuse to credit any thing which contradicts the narrow 
 limits of their own observation, that there are '' more 
 secrets in nature than are dreamt of in their philoso- 
 phy;" and that upon their own principles, before they 
 have a right to condemn me, they should go or send to 
 the mountains of Ava, for some of the metal with which 
 I made my venturous experiment, and make one for 
 themselves. 
 
 As to those who do not call in question my veracity, 
 but only doubt my sanity, I fearlessly appeal from their 
 unkind judgment to the sober and unprejudiced part of 
 mankind, whether, what I have stated in the following 
 pages, is not consonant with truth and nature, and whe- 
 ther they do not there see, faithfully reflected from the 
 Moon, the errors of the learned on Earth, and " the 
 follies of the wise ?" 
 
 JOSEPH ATTERLEY. 
 
 Long-Island, September, 1827. 
 
VOYAGE TO THE MOON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Atterlexfs birth and education — He makes a voy- 
 age — Founders off the Burman coast — Adven- 
 tures in that Empire — Meets ivith a learned 
 Brahmin from Benares. 
 
 Being about to give a narrative of my singular 
 adventures to the world, which, I foresee, will be 
 greatly divided about their authenticity, I will 
 premise something of my early history, that those 
 to whom I am not personally known, may be bet- 
 ter able to ascertain what credit is due to the facts 
 which rest only on my own assertion. 
 
 I was born in the village of Huntingdon, on 
 Long-Island, on the 11th day of May, L7SG. Jo- 
 seph Atterley, my father, formerly of East Jersey, 
 as it was once called, had settled in this place 
 about a year before, in consequence of having 
 married my mother, Alice Schermerhorn, the only 
 daughter of a snug Dutch farmer in the neigh- 
 2 
 
14 
 
 bourhood. By means of the portion he received 
 with my mother, together with his own earnings, 
 he was enabled to quit the life of a sailor, to which 
 he had been bred, and to enter into trade. After 
 the death of his father-in-law, by whose will he 
 received a handsome accession to his property, he 
 sought, in the city of New-York, a theatre better 
 suited to his enlarged capital. He here engaged 
 in foreign trade ; and, partaking of the prosperity 
 which then attended American commerce, he 
 gradually extended his business, and finally em- 
 barked in our new branch of traffic to the East 
 Indies and China. He was now very generally 
 respected, both for his wealth and fair dealing ; 
 was several years a director in one of the insur- 
 ance offices; was president of the society for 
 relieving the widows and orphans of distressed 
 seamen ; and, it is said, might have been chosen 
 alderman, if he had not refused, on the ground 
 that he did not think himself qualified. 
 
 My father was not one of those who set little 
 value on book learning, from their own conscious- 
 ness of not possessing it : on the contrary, he 
 would often remark, that as he felt the want of a 
 liberal education himself, he was determined to 
 bestow one on me. I was accordingly, at an early 
 age, put to a grammar school of good repute in 
 
15 
 
 my native village, the master of which, I believe, 
 is now a member of Congress ; and, at the age of 
 seventeen, was sent to Princeton, to prepare my- 
 self for some profession. During my third year at 
 that place, in one of my excursions to Philadel- 
 phia, and for which I was always inventing pre- 
 texts, I became acquainted with one of those faces 
 and forms which, in a youth of twenty, to see, 
 admire, and love, is one and the same thing. My 
 attentions were favourably received. I soon be- 
 came desperately in love; and, in spite of the 
 advice of my father and entreaties of my mother, 
 who had formed other schemes for me nearer 
 home, I was married on the anniversary of my 
 twenty-first year. 
 
 It was not until the first trance of bliss was 
 over, that I began to think seriously on the course 
 of life I was to pursue. From the time that my 
 mind had run on love and matrimony, I had lost 
 all relish for serious study ; and long before that 
 time, I had felt a sentiment bordering on contempt 
 for the pursuits of my father. Besides, he had 
 already taken my two younger brothers into the 
 counting-house with him. I therefore prevailed 
 on my indulgent parent, with the aid of my mo- 
 ther's intercession, to purchase for me a neat 
 country-seat near Huntingdon, which presented a 
 
16 
 
 beautiful view of the Sound, and where, surround- 
 ed by the scenes of my childhood, I promised 
 myself to realise, with my Susanna, that life of 
 tranquil felicity which fancy, warmed by love, so 
 vividly depicts. 
 
 If we did not meet with all that we had expect- 
 ed, it was because we had expected too much. 
 The happiest life, like the purest atmosphere, has 
 its clouds as well as its sunshine ; and what is 
 worse, we never fully know the value of the one, 
 until we have felt the inconvenience of the other. 
 In the cultivation of my farm — in educating our 
 children, a son and two daughters, in reading, 
 music, painting — and in occasional visits to our 
 friends in New-York and Philadelphia, seventeen 
 years glided swiftly and imperceptibly away; at 
 the end of which time death, in depriving me of 
 an excellent wife, made a wreck of my hopes and 
 enjoyments. For the purpose of seeking that 
 relief to my feelings which change of place only 
 could afford, I determined to make a sea voyage; 
 and, as one of my father's vessels was about to 
 sail for Canton, I accordingly embarked on board 
 the well-known ship the Tivo Brothers, captain 
 Thomas, and left Sandy-hook on the 5th day of 
 June, 1822, having first placed my three children 
 under the care of my brother William, 
 
17 
 
 1 will not detain the reader with a detail of the 
 first incidents of our voyage, though they were 
 sufficiently interesting at the time they occurred, 
 and were not wanting in the usual variety. We 
 had, in singular succession, dead calms and fresh 
 breezes, stiff gales and sudden squalls; saw sharks, 
 flying-fish, and dolphins ; spoke several vessels : 
 had a visit from Neptune when we crossed the 
 Line, and were compelled to propitiate his favour 
 with some gallons of spirits, which he seems 
 always to find a very agreeable change from sea- 
 water ; and touched at Table Bay and at Mada- 
 gascar. 
 
 On the whole, our voyage was comparatively 
 pleasant and prosperous, until the 24th of Octo- 
 ber; when, oft' the mouths of the Ganges, after a 
 fine clear autumnal day, just about sunset, a small 
 dark speck was seen in the eastern horizon by our 
 experienced and watchful captain, who, after 
 noticing it for a few moments, pronounced that 
 we should have a hurricane. The rapidity with 
 which this speck grew into a dense cloud, and 
 spread itself in darkness over the heavens, as well 
 as the increasing swell of the ocean before we 
 felt the wind, soon convinced us he was right. No 
 time was lost in lowering our topmasts, taking 
 double reefs, and making every thing snug, to 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 meet the fury of the tempest. 1 thought 1 had 
 already witnessed all that was terrific on the 
 ocean ; but what I had formerly seen, had been 
 mere child's play compared with this. Never can 
 I forget the impression that was made upon me 
 by the wild uproar of the elements. The smooth, 
 long swell of the waves gradually changed into 
 an agitated frothy surface, which constant flashes 
 of lightning presented to us in all its horror; and 
 in the mean time the wind whistled through the 
 rigging, and the ship creaked as if she was every 
 minute going to pieces. 
 
 About midnight the storm was at its height, and 
 I gave up all for lost. The wind, which first blew 
 from the south-west, was then due south, and 
 the sailors said it began to abate a little before 
 day : but I saw no great difference until about 
 three in the afternoon ; soon after which the 
 clouds broke away, and showed us the sun setting 
 in cloudless majesty, while the billows still conti- 
 nued their stupendous rolling, but with a heavy 
 movement, as if, after such mighty efforts, they 
 were seeking repose in the bosom of their parent 
 ocean. It soon became almost calm ; a light 
 western breeze barely swelled our sails, and gently 
 wafted us to the land, which we could faintly dis- 
 cern to the north-east. Our ship had been so 
 
19 
 
 shaken in the tempest, and was so leaky, that 
 captain Thomas thought it prudent to make for 
 the first port we could reach. 
 
 At dawn we found ourselves in full view of a 
 coast, which, though not personally known to the 
 captain, he pronounced by his charts to be a part 
 of the Burmese Empire, and in the neighbourhood 
 of Mergui, on the Martaban coast. The leak had 
 now increased to an alarming extent, so that we 
 found it would be impossible to carry the ship safe 
 into port. We therefore hastily threw our clothes, 
 papers, and eight casks of silver, into the long- 
 boat ; and before we were fifty yards from the 
 ship, we saw her go down. Some of the under- 
 writers in New- York, as I have since learnt, had 
 the conscience to contend that we left the ship 
 sooner than was necessary, and have suffered 
 themselves to be sued for the sums they had seve- 
 rally insured. It was a little after mid-day when 
 we reached the town, which is perched on a high 
 bluff, overlooking the coasts, and contains about 
 a thousand houses, built of bamboo, and covered 
 with palm leaves. Our dress, appearance, lan- 
 guage, and the manner of our arrival, excited 
 great surprise among the natives, and the liveliest 
 curiosity ; but with these sentiments some evi- 
 dently mingled no very friendly feelings. The 
 
20 
 
 Burmese were then on the eve of a rupture with 
 the East India Company, a fact which we had not 
 before known ; and mistaking us for English, they 
 supposed, or affected to suppose, that we belong- 
 ed to a fleet which was about to invade them, and 
 that our ship had been sunk before their eyes, by 
 the tutelar divinity of the country. We were 
 immediately carried before their governor, or 
 chief magistrate, who ordered our baggage to be 
 searched, and finding that it consisted principally 
 of silver, he had no doubt of our hostile intentions. 
 He therefore sent all of us, twenty-two in number, 
 to prison, separating, however, each one from the 
 rest. My companions were released the following 
 spring, as I have since learnt, by the invading 
 army of Great Britain ; but it was my ill fortune 
 (if, indeed, after what has since happened, I can 
 so regard it) to be taken for an officer of high 
 rank, and to be sent, the third day afterwards, far 
 into the interior, that I might be more safely kept, 
 and either used as a hostage or offered for ransom, 
 as circumstances should render advantageous. 
 
 The reader is, no doubt, aware that the Bur- 
 man Empire lies beyond the Ganges, between 
 the British possessions and the kingdom of Siam ; 
 and that the natives nearly assimilate with those 
 of Hindostan, in language, manners, religion, and 
 
21 
 
 character, except that they are more hardy and 
 warlike. 
 
 I was transported very rapidly in a palanquin, 
 (a sort of decorated litter,) carried on the shoul- 
 ders of four men, who, for greater despatch, were 
 changed every three hours. In this way I tra- 
 velled thirteen days, in which time we reached a 
 little village in the mountainous district between 
 the Irawaddi and Saloon rivers, where I was 
 placed under the care of an inferior magistrate, 
 called a Mirvoon, who there exercised the chief 
 authority. 
 
 This place, named Mozaun, was romantically 
 situated in a fertile valley, that seemed to be com- 
 pletely shut in by the mountains. A small river, 
 a branch of the Saloon, entered it from the west, 
 and, after running about four miles in nearly a 
 straight direction, turned suddenly round a steep 
 hill to the south, and was entirely lost to view. 
 The village was near a gap in the mountain, 
 through which the river seemed to have forced its 
 way, and consisted of about forty or fifty huts, 
 built of the bamboo cane and reeds. The house 
 of my landlord was somewhat larger and better 
 than the rest. It stood on a little knoll that over- 
 looked the village, the valley, the stream that ran 
 through it, and commanded a distant view of the 
 
22 
 
 country beyond the gap. It was certainly a lovely 
 little spot, as it now appears to my imagination ; 
 but when the landscape was new to me, I was in 
 no humour to relish its beauties, and when my 
 mind was more in a state to appreciate them, 
 they had lost their novelty. 
 
 My keeper, whose name was Sing Fou, and 
 who, from a long exercise of magisterial autho- 
 rity, was rough and dictatorial, behaved to me 
 somewhat harshly at first ; but my patient submis- 
 sion so won his confidence and good will, that I 
 soon became a great favourite ; was regarded 
 more as one of his family than as a prisoner, and 
 * was allowed by him every indulgence consistent 
 with my safe custody. But the difficulties in the 
 way of my escape were so great, that little re- 
 straint was imposed on my motions. The narrow 
 defile in the gap, through which the river rushed 
 like a torrent, was closed with a gate. The moun- 
 tains, by which the valley was hemmed in, were 
 utterly impassable, thickly set as they were with 
 jungle, consisting of tangled brier, thorn and forest 
 trees, of which those who have never been in a 
 tropical climate can form no adequate idea. In 
 some places it would be difficult to penetrate 
 more than a mile in the day ; during which time 
 the traveller would be perpetually tormented by 
 
23 
 
 noxious insects, and in constant dread of beasts 
 of prey. 
 
 The only outlet from this village was by passing 
 down the valley along the settlements, and fol- 
 lowing the course of the stream ; so that there 
 was no other injunction laid on me, than not to 
 extend my rambles far in that direction. Sing 
 Fou's household consisted of his wife, whom I 
 rarely saw, four small children, and six servants ; 
 and here I enjoyed nearly as great a portion of 
 happiness as in any part of my life. 
 
 It had been one of my favourite amusements to 
 ramble towards a part of the western ridge, which 
 rose in a cone about a mile and a half from the 
 village, and there ascending to some compara- 
 tively level spot, or point projecting from its side, 
 enjoy the beautiful scenery which lay before me, 
 and the evening breeze, which has such a deli- 
 cious freshness in a tropical climate. 
 
 Nor was this all. In a deep sequestered nook, 
 formed by two spurs of this mountain, there lived 
 a venerable Hindoo, whom the people of the vil- 
 lage called the Holy Hermit. The favourable 
 accounts I received of his character, as well as his 
 odd course of life, made me very desirous of be- 
 coming acquainted with him ; and, as he was often 
 visited by the villagers, I found no difficulty in 
 
24 
 
 getting a conductor to his cell. His character for 
 sanctity, together with a venerable beard, might 
 have discouraged advances towards an acquaint- 
 ance, if his lively piercing eye, a countenance 
 expressive of great mildness and kindness of dis- 
 position, and his courteous manners, had not yet 
 more strongly invited it. He was indeed not 
 averse to society, though he had seemed thus to 
 fly from it; and was so great a favourite with his 
 neighbours, that his cell would have been thronged 
 with visiters, but for the difficulty of the approach 
 to it. As it was, it was seldom resorted to, except 
 for the purpose of obtaining his opinion and 
 counsel on all the serious concerns of his neigh- 
 bours. He prescribed for the sick, and often pro- 
 vided the medicine they required — expounded the 
 law — adjusted disputes — made all their little 
 arithmetical calculations — gave them moral in- 
 struction — and, when he could not afford them 
 relief in their difficulties, he taught them patience, 
 and gave them consolation. He, in short, united, 
 for the simple people by whom he was surrounded, 
 the functions of lawyer, physician, schoolmaster, 
 and divine, and richly merited the reverential 
 respect in which they held him, as well as their 
 little presents of eggs, fruit, and garden stuff. 
 From the first evening that I joined the party 
 
25 
 
 which I saw clambering up the path that led to 
 the Hermit's cell, I found myself strongly attached 
 to this venerable man, and the more so, from the 
 mystery which hung around his history. It was 
 agreed that he was not a Burmese. None deemed 
 to know certainly where he was born, or why he 
 came thither. His own account was, that he had 
 devoted himself to the service of God, and in his 
 pilgrimage over the east, had selected this as a 
 spot particularly favourable to the life of quiet 
 and seclusion he wished to lead. 
 
 There was one part of his story to which I 
 could scarcely give credit. It was said that in 
 the twelve or fifteen years he had resided in this 
 place, he had been occasionally invisible for 
 months together, and no one could tell why he 
 disappeared, or whither he had gone. At these 
 times his cell was closed ; and although none ven- 
 tured to force their way into it, those who were 
 the most prying could hear no sound indicating 
 that he was within. Various were the conjectures 
 formed on the subject. Some supposed that he 
 withdrew from the sight of men for the purpose 
 of more fervent prayer and more holy meditation ; 
 others, that he visited his home, or some other 
 distant country. The more superstitious believed 
 that he had, by a kind of metempsychosis, taken 
 3 
 
2G 
 
 a new shape, which, by some magical or super- 
 natural power, he could assume and put off at 
 pleasure. This opinion was perhaps the most 
 prevalent, as it gained a colour with these simple 
 people, from the chemical and astronomical in- 
 struments he possessed. In these he evidently 
 took great pleasure, and by their means he ac> 
 quired some of the knowledge by which he so 
 often excited their admiration, 
 
 He soon distinguished me from the rest of his 
 visiters, by addressing questions to me relative to 
 my history and adventures ; and I, in turn, was 
 gratified to have met with- one who took an 
 interest in my concerns, and who alone, of all I 
 had here met with, could either enter into my 
 feelings or comprehend my opinions. Our con- 
 versations were carried on in English, which he 
 spoke with facility and correctness. We soon 
 found ourselves so much to each other's taste, that 
 there was seldom an evening that I did not make 
 him a visit, and pass an hour or two in his com- 
 pany. 
 
 I learnt from him that he was born and bred at 
 Benares, in Hindostan ; that he had been intend- 
 ed for the priesthood, and had been well instruct- 
 ed in the literature of the east. That a course of 
 untoward circumstances, upon which he seemed 
 
27 
 
 unwilling to dwell, had changed his destination, 
 and made him a wanderer on the face of the 
 earth. That in the neighbouring kingdom of Siam 
 he had formed an intimacy with a learned French 
 Jesuit, who had not only taught him his language, 
 but imparted to him a knowledge of much of the 
 science of Europe, its institutions and manners. 
 That after the death of this friend, he had renew- 
 ed his wanderings-, and having been detained in 
 this village by a fit of sickness for some weeks, he 
 was warned that it was time to quit his rambling 
 life. This place being recommended to him, both 
 by its quiet seclusion, and the unsophisticated 
 manners of its inhabitants, he determined to pass 
 the remnant of his days here, and, by devoting 
 them to the purposes of piety, charity, and sci- 
 ence, to discharge his duty to his Creator, his 
 species, and himself; " for the love of knowledge, 1 ' 
 he added, "has long been my chief source of 
 selfish enjoyment. 1 ' 
 
 Our tastes and sentiments accorded in so many 
 points, that our acquaintance ripened by degrees 
 into the closest friendship. We were both stran- 
 gers — both unfortunate ; and were the only indi- 
 viduals here who had any knowledge of letters, or 
 of distant parts of the world. These are, indeed, 
 the main springs of that sympathy, without which 
 
28 
 
 there is no love among men. It is being overwise, 
 to treat with contempt what mankind hold in 
 respect : and philosophy teaches us not to extin- 
 guish our feelings, but to correct and refine them. 
 My visits to the hermitage were frequently renew- 
 ed at first, because they afforded me the relief of 
 variety, whilst his intimate knowledge of men and 
 things — his remarkable sagacity and good sense 
 — his'air of mingled piety and benignity, — cheated 
 me into forgetfulness of my situation. As these 
 gradually yielded to the lenitive power of time, I 
 sought his conversation for the positive pleasure 
 it afforded, and at last it became the chief source 
 of my happiness. Day after day, and month after 
 month, glided on in this gentle, unvarying current, 
 for more than three years ; during which period 
 he had occasionally thrown out dark hints that 
 the time would come when I should be restored 
 to liberty, and that he had an important secret, 
 which he would one day communicate. I should 
 have been more tantalized with the expectations 
 that these remarks were calculated to raise, had 
 I not suspected them to be a good-natured arti- 
 fice, to save me from despondency, as they were 
 never made except when he saw me looking seri- 
 ous and thoughtful. 
 
29 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Brahmin's illness — He reveals an important 
 secret to Atterley — Curious information con- 
 cerning the Moon — The Glonglims — They plan 
 a voyage to the Moon. 
 
 About this period, one afternoon in the month 
 of March, when I repaired to the hermitage as 
 usual, I found my venerable friend stretched on 
 his humble pallet, breathing very quickly, and 
 seemingly in great pain. He was labouring under 
 a pleurisy, which is not unfrequent in the moun- 
 tainous region, at this season. He told me that 
 his disease had not yielded to the ordinary reme- 
 dies which he had tried when he first felt its ap- 
 proach, and that he considered himself to be 
 dangerously ill. " I am, however, 1 ' he added, 
 " prepared to die. Sit down on that block, and 
 listen to what 1 shall say to you. Though I shall 
 quit this state of being for another and a better, 
 I confess that I was alarmed at the thought of 
 expiring, before I had an opportunity of seeing 
 and conversing with you. I am the depository of 
 a secret, that I believe is known to no other living 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 mortal. I once determined that it should die with 
 me ; and had I not met with you, it certainly 
 should. But from our first acquaintance, my heart 
 has been strongly attracted towards you ; and as 
 soon as I found you possessed of qualities to in- 
 spire esteem as well as regard, I felt disposed to 
 give you this proof of my confidence. Still I hesi- 
 tated. I first wished to deliberate on the probable 
 effects of my disclosure upon the condition of 
 society. I saw that it might produce evil, as well 
 as good ; but on weighing the two together, I have 
 satisfied myself that the good will preponderate, 
 and have determined to act accordingly. Take 
 this key, (stretching out his feverish hand,) and 
 after waiting two hours, in which time the medi- 
 cine I have taken will have either produced a 
 good effect, or put an end to my sufferings, you 
 may then open that blue chest in the corner. It 
 has a false bottom. On removing the paper which 
 covers it, you will find the manuscript containing 
 the important secret, together with some gold 
 pieces, which I have saved for the day of need — 
 because — (and he smiled in spite of his sufferings) 
 — because hoarding is one of the pleasures of old 
 men. Take them both, and use them discreetly. 
 When I am gone, I request you, my friend, to 
 discharge the last sad duties of humanity, and to 
 
31 
 
 see me buried according to the usages of my 
 caste. The simple beings around me will then 
 behold that I am mortal like themselves. And let 
 this precious relic of female loveliness and worth, 
 (taking a small picture, set in gold, from his bo- 
 som,) be buried with me. It has been warmed by 
 my heart's blood for twenty-five years : let it be 
 still near that heart when it ceases to beat. I 
 have yet more to say to you ; but my strength is 
 too much exhausted." 
 
 The good old man here closed his eyes, with an 
 expression of patient resignation, and rather as if 
 he courted sleep than felt inclined to it: and, after 
 shutting the door of his cell, I repaired to his little 
 garden, to pass the allotted two hours. Left to 
 my meditations, when I thought that I was pro- 
 bably about to be deprived for ever of the Her- 
 mit's conversation and society, I felt the wretch- 
 edness of my situation recur with all its former 
 force. I sat down on a smooth rock under a 
 tamarind tree, the scene of many an interesting 
 conference between the Brahmin and myself; 
 and I cast my eyes around — but how changed 
 was every thing before me ! I no longer regarded 
 the sparkling eddies of the little cascade which 
 fell down a steep rock at the upper end of the 
 garden, and formed a pellucid basin below. The 
 
32 
 
 gay flowers and rich foliage of this genial climate 
 — the bright plumage and cheerful notes of the 
 birds — were all there ; but my mind was not in a 
 state to relish them. I arose, and in extreme agi- 
 tation rambled over this little Eden, in which I 
 had passed so many delightful hours. 
 
 Before the allotted time had elapsed — shall I 
 confess it ? — my fears for the Hermit were over- 
 come by those that were purely selfish. It occur- 
 red to me, if he should thus suddenly die, and I 
 be found alone in his cell, I might be charged 
 with being his murderer ; and my courage, which, 
 from long inaction, had sadly declined of late, de- 
 serted me at the thought. After the most torturing 
 suspense, the dial at length showed me that the 
 two hours had elapsed, and I hastened to the 
 cell. 
 
 I paused a moment at the door, afraid to enter, 
 or even look in ; made one or two steps, and 
 hearing no sound, concluded that all was over 
 with the Hermit, and that my own doom was 
 sealed. My delight was inexpressible, therefore, 
 when I perceived that he still breathed, and 
 when, on drawing nearer, I found that he slept 
 soundly. In a moment I passed from misery to 
 bliss. I seated myself by his side, and there re- 
 mained for more than an hour, enjoying the tran- 
 
33 
 
 sition of my feelings. At length he awoke, and 
 casting on me a look of placid benignity, said, — 
 " Atterley, my time is not yet come. Though re- 
 signed to death, I am content to live. The worst 
 is over. I am already almost restored to health. 
 I then administered to him some refreshments, 
 and, after a while, left him to repose. On again 
 repairing to the garden, every object assumed its 
 wonted appearance. The fragrance of the orange 
 and the jasmine was no longer lost to me. The 
 humming birds, which swarmed round the flower- 
 ing cytisus and the beautiful water-fall, once more 
 delighted the eye and the ear. I took my usual 
 bath, as the sun was sinking below the mountain; 
 and, finding the Hermit still soundly sleeping, I 
 threw myself on a seat, under the shelter of some 
 bamboos, fell asleep, and did not awake until late 
 the next morning. 
 
 When I arose, I found the good Brahmin up, 
 and, though much weakened by his disease, able 
 to walk about. He told me that the Mirvoon, 
 uneasy at my not returning as usual in the even- 
 ing, had sent in search of me, and that the servant, 
 finding me safe, was content to return without 
 me. He advised me, however, not to repeat the 
 same cause of alarm. Sing Fou, on hearing my 
 explanation, readily forgave me for the uneasiness 
 
34 
 
 I had caused him. After a few days, the Brahmin 
 recovered his ordinary health and strength ; and 
 having attended him at an earlier hour than usual, 
 according to his request on the previous evening, 
 he thus addressed me : — 
 
 " I have already told you, my dear Atterley, 
 that I was bom and educated at Benares, and 
 that science is there more thoroughly understood 
 and taught than the people of the west are aware 
 of. We have, for many thousands of years, been 
 good astronomers, chymists, mathematicians, and 
 philosophers. We had discovered the secret of 
 gunpowder, the magnetic attraction, the proper- 
 ties of electricity, long before they were heard of 
 in Europe. We know more than we have reveal- 
 ed ; and much of our knowledge is deposited in 
 the archives of the caste to which I belong ; but, 
 for want of a language generally understood and 
 easily learnt, (for these records are always written 
 in the Sanscrit, that is no longer a spoken lan- 
 guage,) and the diffusion which is given by the art 
 of printing, these secrets of science are commu- 
 nicated only to a few, and sometimes even sleep 
 with their authors, until a subsequent discovery, 
 under more favourable circumstances, brings them 
 again to light. 
 
 -" It was at this seat of science that I learnt, 
 
35 
 
 from one of our sages, the physical truth which I 
 am now about to communicate, and which he 
 discovered, partly by his researches into the wri- 
 tings of ancient Pundits, and partly by his own 
 extraordinary sagacity. There is a principle of 
 repulsion as well as gravitation in the earth. It 
 causes fire to rise upwards. It is exhibited in 
 electricity. It occasions water-spouts, volcanoes, 
 and earthquakes. After much labour and re- 
 search, this principle has been found embodied in 
 a metallic substance, which is met with in the 
 mountain in which we are, united with a very 
 heavy earth; and this circumstance had great 
 influence in inducing me to settle myself here. 
 
 " This metal, when separated and purified, has 
 as great a tendency to fly oft' from the earth, as a 
 piece of gold or lead has to approach it. After 
 making a number of curious experiments with it, 
 we bethought ourselves of putting it to some use, 
 and soon contrived, with the aid of it, to make 
 cars and ascend into the air. We were very secret 
 in these operations ; for our unhappy country 
 having then recently fallen under the subjection 
 of the British nation, we apprehended that if we 
 divulged our arcanum, they would not only fly 
 away with all our treasures, whether found in 
 palace or pagoda, but also carry off the inhabi- 
 
I 
 
 36 
 
 tants, to make them slaves in their colonies, as 
 their government had not then abolished the 
 African slave trade. 
 
 " After various trials and many successive im- 
 provements, in which our desires increased with 
 our success, we determined to penetrate the 
 aerial void as far as we could, providing for that 
 purpose an apparatus, with which you will be- 
 come better acquainted hereafter. In the course 
 of our experiments, we discovered that this same 
 metal, which was repelled from the earth, was in 
 the same degree attracted towards the moon ; 
 for in one of our excursions, still aiming to ascend 
 higher than we had ever done before, we were 
 actually carried to that satellite ; and if we had 
 not there fallen into a lake, and our machine had 
 not been water-tight, we must have been dashed 
 to pieces or drowned. You will find in this 
 book," he added, presenting me with a small 
 volume, bound in green parchment, and fastened 
 with silver clasps, " a minute detail of the appa- 
 ratus to be provided, and the directions to be 
 pursued in making this wonderful voyage. I have 
 written it since I satisfied my mind that my fears 
 of British rapacity were unfounded, and that I 
 should do more good than harm by publishing the 
 secret. But still I am not sure," he added, with 
 
37 
 
 one of his faint but significant smiles, " that I am 
 not actuated by a wish to immortalize my name ; 
 for where is the mortal who would be indifferent 
 to this object, if he thought he could attain it? 
 Read the book at your leisure, and study it." 
 
 I listened to this recital with astonishment ; 
 and doubted at first, whether the Brahmin's late 
 severe attack had not had the effect of unsettling 
 his brain: but on looking in his face, the calm 
 self-possession and intelligence which it exhibited, 
 dispelled the momentary impression. I was all 
 impatience to know the adventures he met with in 
 the moon, asking him fifty questions in a breath, 
 but was most anxious to learn if it had inhabi- 
 tants, and what sort of beings they were. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " the moon has inhabitants, 
 pretty much the same as the earth, of which they 
 believe their globe to have been formerly a part. 
 But suspend your questions, and let me give you 
 a recital of the most remarkable things I saw 
 there." 
 
 I checked my impatience, and listened with all 
 my ears to the wonders he related. He went on 
 to inform me that the inhabitants of the moon 
 resembled those of the earth, in form, stature, fea- 
 tures, and manners, and were evidently of the 
 same species, as they did not differ more than did 
 4 
 
38 
 
 the Hottentot from the Parisian. That they had 
 similar passions, propensities, and pursuits, but 
 differed greatly in manners and habits. They had 
 more activity, but less strength : they were feebler 
 in mind as well as body. But the most curious 
 part of his information was, that a large num- 
 ber of them were born without any intellectual 
 vigour, and wandered about as so many auto- 
 matons, under the care of the government, until 
 they were illuminated with the mental ray from 
 some earthly brains, by means of the mysterious 
 influence which the moon is known to exercise on 
 our planet. But in this case the inhabitant of the 
 earth loses what the inhabitant of the moon gains 
 — the ordinary portion of understanding allotted 
 to one mortal being thus divided between two ; 
 and, as might be expected, seeing that the two 
 minds were originally the same, there is a most 
 exact conformity between the man of the earth 
 and his counterpart in the moon, in all their prin- 
 ciples of action and modes of thinking. 
 
 These Glonglims, as they are called, after they 
 have been thus imbued with intellect, are held in 
 peculiar respect by the vulgar, and are thought to 
 be in every way superior to those whose under- 
 standings are entire. The laws by which two 
 objects, so far apart, operate on each other, have 
 
39 
 
 been, as yet, but imperfectly developed, and the 
 wilder their freaks, the more they are the objects 
 of wonder and admiration. " The science of 
 lunar -ologij," he observed, " is yet in its infancy. 
 But in the three voyages I have made to the moon, 
 I have acquired so many new facts, and imparted 
 so many to the learned men of that planet, that it 
 is, without doubt, the subject of their active spe- 
 culations at this time, and will, probably, assume 
 a regular form long before the new science of 
 phrenology of which you tell me, and which it 
 must, in time, supersede. Now and then, though 
 very rarely, the man of the earth regains the intel- 
 lect he has lost ; in which case his lunar counter- 
 part returns to his former state of imbecility. Both 
 parties are entirely unconscious of the change — 
 one, of what he has lost, and the other of what he 
 has gained." 
 
 The Brahmin then added : " Though our party 
 are the only voyagers of which authentic history 
 affords any testimony, yet it is probable, from 
 obscure hints in some of our most ancient writings 
 in the Sanscrit, that the voyage has been made in 
 remote periods of antiquity ; and the Lunarians 
 have a similar tradition. While, in the revolutions 
 which have so changed the" affairs of mankind on 
 our globe, (and probably in its satellite,) the art 
 
40 
 
 has been lost, faint traces of its existence may be 
 perceived in the opinions of the vulgar, and in 
 many of their ordinary forms of expression. Thus 
 it is generally believed throughout all Asia, that 
 the moon has an influence on the brain ; and 
 when a man is of insane mind, we call him a lu- 
 natic. One of the curses of the common people 
 is, ' May the moon eat up your brains ;' and in 
 China they say of a man who has done any act 
 of egregious folly, ' He was gathering wool in the 
 moon. 1 " 
 
 I was struck with these remark?, and told the 
 Hermit that the language of Europe afforded the 
 same indirect evidence of the fact he mentioned: 
 that my own language especially, abounded with 
 expressions which could be explained on no other 
 hypothesis ; — for, besides the terms " lunacy," 
 " lunatic," and the supposed influence of the 
 moon on the brain, when we see symptoms of a 
 disordered intellect, we say the mind wanders, 
 which evidently alludes to a part of it rambling to 
 a distant region, as is the moon. We say too, a 
 man is " out of his head,'"' that is, his mind being 
 in another man's head, must of course be out of 
 his own. To " know no more than the man in 
 the moon," is a proverbial expression for igno- 
 rance, and is without meaning, unless it be consi- 
 
41 
 
 sidered to refer to the Glonglims. We say that 
 an insane man is " distracted ;" by which we 
 mean that his mind is drawn two different ways. 
 So also, we call a lunatic a man beside himself, 
 which most distinctly expresses the two distinct 
 bodies his mind now animates. There are, 
 moreover, many other analogous expressions, as 
 " moonstruck,' 1 " deranged, 1 ' " extravagant, 11 and 
 some others, which, altogether, form a mass of 
 concurring testimony that it is impossible to 
 resist. 
 
 " Be that as it may," said he, " whether the 
 voyage has been made in former times or not, is 
 of little importance: it is sufficient for us to know 
 that it has been effected in our time, and can be 
 effected again. I am anxious to repeat the voy- 
 age, for the purpose of ascertaining some facts, 
 about which I have been lately speculating; and 
 I wish, besides, to afford you ocular demonstra- 
 tion of the wonders I have disclosed ; for, in spite 
 of your good opinion of my veracity, I have some- 
 times perceived symptoms of incredulity about 
 you, and I do not wonder at it. 11 
 
 The love of the marvellous, and the wish for a 
 change, which had long slumbered in my bosom, 
 were now suddenly awakened, and I eagerly 
 caught at his proposal. 
 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 " When can we set out, father?" said I. 
 
 " Not so fast," replied he ; " we have a great 
 deal of preparation to make. Our apparatus 
 requires the best workmanship, and we cannot 
 here command either first-rate articles or mate- 
 rials, without incurring the risk of suspicion and 
 interruption. While most of the simple villagers 
 are kindly disponed towards me, there are a few 
 who regard me with distrust and malevolence, 
 and would readily avail themselves of an oppor- 
 tunity to bring me under the censure of the priest- 
 hood and the government. Besides, the governor 
 of Mergui would probably be glad to lay hold of 
 any plausible evidence against you, as affording 
 him the best chance of avoiding any future reck- 
 oning either with you or his superiors. We must 
 therefore be very secret in our plans. I know an 
 ingenious artificer in copper and other metals, 
 whose only child I was instrumental in curing of 
 scrofula, and in whose fidelity, as well as good 
 will, I can safely rely. But we must give him 
 time. He can construct our machine at home, 
 and we must take our departure from that place 
 in the night.'- 
 
43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Brahmin and Atterley prepare for their voy- 
 age — Description of their machine — Incidents 
 of the voyage — The appearance of the earth; 
 Africa; Greece — The Brahmin's speculations 
 on the different races of men — National cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Having thus formed our plan of operations, we 
 the next day proceeded to put them in execution. 
 The coppersmith agreed to undertake the work 
 we wanted done, for a moderate compensation ; 
 but we did not think it prudent to inform him of 
 our object, which he supposed was to make some 
 philosophical experiment. It was forthwith ar- 
 ranged that he should occasionally visit the Her- 
 mit, to receive instructions, as if for the purpose 
 of asking medical advice. During this interval 
 my mind was absorbed with our project ; and 
 when in company, I was so thoughtful and ab- 
 stracted, that it has since seemed strange to me 
 that Sing Fou's suspicions that I was planning 
 my escape were not more excited. At length, by 
 dint of great exertion, in about three months 
 

 44 
 
 every thing was in readiness, and we determined 
 on the following night to set out on our perilous 
 expedition. 
 
 The machine in which we proposed to embark, 
 was a copper vessel, that would have been an 
 exact cube of six feet, if the corners and edges 
 had not been rounded oft'. It had an opening 
 large enough to receive our bodies, which was 
 closed by double sliding pannels, with quilted 
 cloth between them. When these were properly 
 adjusted, the machine was perfectly air-tight, and 
 strong enough, by- means of iron bars running 
 alternately inside and out, to resist the pressure of 
 the atmosphere, when the machine should be ex- 
 hausted of its air, as we took the precaution to 
 prove by the aid of an air-pump. On the top of 
 the copper chest and on the outside, we had as 
 much of the lunar metal (which I shall henceforth 
 call lunarium) as we found, by calculation and 
 experiment, would overcome the weight of the 
 machine, as well as its contents, and take us to 
 the moon on the third day. As the air which the 
 machine contained, would not be sufficient for 
 our respiration more than about six hours, and the 
 chief part of the space we were to pass through 
 was a mere void, we provided ourselves with a 
 sufficient supply, by condensing it in a small glo- 
 
45 
 
 bular vessel, made partly of iron and partly of 
 lunarium, to take off its weight. On my return, 
 I gave Mr. Jacob Perkins, who is now in England, 
 a hint of this plan of condensation, and it has 
 there obtained him great celebrity. This fact I 
 should not have thought it worth while to men- 
 tion, had he not taken the sole merit of the inven- 
 tion to himself; at least I cannot hear that in his 
 numerous public notices he has ever mentioned 
 my name. 
 
 But to return. A small circular window, made 
 of a single piece of thick clear glass, was neatly 
 fitted on each of the six sides. Several pieces of 
 lead were securely fastened to screws which pass- 
 ed through the bottom of the machine as well as 
 a thick plank. The screws were so contrived, that 
 by turning them in one direction, the pieces of 
 lead attached to them were immediately disen- 
 gaged from the hooks with which they were con- 
 nected. The pieces of lunarium were fastened in 
 like manner to screws, which passed through the 
 top of the machine ; so that by turning them in 
 one direction, those metallic pieces would fly into 
 the air with the velocity of a rocket. The Brahmin 
 took with him a thermometer, two telescopes, one 
 of which projected through the top of the ma- 
 chine, and the other through the bottom ; a phos* 
 
46 
 
 phoric lamp, pen, ink, and paper, and some light 
 refreshments sufficient to supply us for some days. 
 
 The moon was then in her third quarter, and 
 near the zenith : it was, of course, a little after 
 midnight, and when the coppersmith and his fa- 
 mily were in their soundest sleep, that we entered 
 the machine. In about an hour more we had the 
 doors secured, and every thing arranged in its 
 place, when, cutting the cords which fastened us 
 to the ground, by means of small steel blades 
 which worked in the ends of other screws, we 
 rose from the earth with a whizzing sound, and a 
 sensation at first of very rapid ascent : but after 
 a short time, we were scarcely sensible of any 
 motion in the machine, except when we changed 
 our places. 
 
 The ardent curiosity I had felt to behold the 
 wonderful things which the Brahmin related, and 
 the hope of returning soon to my children and 
 native country, had made me most impatient for 
 the moment of departure ; during which time the 
 hazards and difficulties of the voyage were en- 
 tirely overlooked : but now that the moment of 
 execution had arrived, and I found myself shut up 
 in this small chest, and about to enter on a voy- 
 age so new, so strange, and beset with such a va- 
 riety of dangers, I will not deny that my courage: 
 
47 
 
 failed me, and I would gladly have compromised 
 to return to Mozaun, and remain there quietly all 
 the rest of my days. But shame restrained me, 
 and I dissembled my emotions. 
 
 At our first shock on leaving the earth, my fears 
 were at their height; but after about two hours, 
 I had tolerably well regained my composure, to 
 which the returning light of day greatly contri- 
 buted. By this time we had a full view of the 
 rising sun, pouring a flood of light over one half 
 of the circular landscape below us, and leaving 
 the rest in shade. While those natural objects, 
 the rivers and mountains, land and sea, were fast 
 receding from our view, our horizon kept gradu- 
 ally extending as we mounted : but ere 10 o'clock 
 this effect ceased, and the broad disc of the earth 
 began sensibly to diminish. 
 
 It is impossible to describe my sensations of 
 mingled awe and admiration at the splendid 
 spectacle beneath me, so long as the different por- 
 tions of the earth's surface were plainly distin- 
 guishable. The novelty of the situation in which 
 I found myself, as well as its danger, prevented 
 me indeed at first from giving more than a pass- 
 ing attention to the magnificent scene; but after 
 a while, encouraged by the Brahmin's exhorta- 
 tion, and yet more by the example of his calm and 
 
48 
 
 assured air, I was able to take a more leisurely 
 view of it. At first, as we partook of the diurnal 
 motion of the earth, and our course was conse- 
 quently oblique, the same portion of the globe 
 from which we had set out, continued directly 
 under us ; and as the eye stretched in every direc- 
 tion over Asia and its seas, continents and islands, 
 they appeared like pieces of green velvet, the 
 surrounding ocean like a mirror, and the Ganges, 
 the Hoogley, and the great rivers of China, like 
 threads of silver. 
 
 About 11 o'clock it was necessary to get a fresh 
 supply of air, when my companion cautiously 
 turned one of the two stop-cocks to let out that 
 which was no longer fit for respiration, requesting 
 me, at the same time, to turn the other, to let in 
 a fresh supply of condensed air ; but being awk- 
 ward in the first attempt to follow his directions, 
 I was so affected by the exhaustion of the air 
 through the vent now made for it, that I fainted ; 
 and having, at the same time, given freer pas- 
 sage to the condensed air than I ought, we must 
 in a few seconds have lost our supply, and thus 
 have inevitably perished, had not the watchful 
 Hermit seen the mischief, and repaired it almost 
 as soon as it occurred. This accident, and the va- 
 rious agitations my mind had undergone in the 
 
49 
 
 course of the day, so overpowered me, that at an 
 early hour in the afternoon I fell into a profound 
 sleep, and did not awake again for eight hours. 
 
 While I slept, the good Brahmin had contrived 
 to manage both stop-cocks himself. The time of 
 my waking would have been about 11 o'clock at 
 night, if we had continued on the earth ; but we 
 were now in a region where there was no alter- 
 nation of day and night, but one unvarying cloud- 
 less sun. Its heat, however, was not in proportion 
 to its brightness ; for we found that after we had 
 ascended a few miles from the earth, it was be- 
 coming much colder, and the Brahmin had re- 
 course to a chemical process for evolving heat, 
 which soon made us comfortable : but after we 
 were fairly in the great aerial void, the tempe- 
 rature of our machine showed no tendency to 
 change. 
 
 The sensations caused by the novelty of my 
 situation, at first checked those lively and varied 
 trains of thought which the bird's-eye view of so 
 many countries passing in review before us, was 
 calculated to excite : yet, after I had become 
 more familiar with it, I contemplated the beauti- 
 ful exhibition with inexpressible delight. Besides, 
 a glass of cordial, as well as the calm, confiding 
 air of the Brahmin, contributed to restore me to 
 5 
 
50 
 
 my self-possession. The reader will recollect, that 
 although our motion, at first, partook of that of the 
 earth's on its axis, and although the positive effect 
 was the same on our course, the relative effect 
 was less and less as we ascended, and conse- 
 quently, that after a certain height, every part of 
 the terraqueous globe would present itself to our 
 view in succession, as we rapidly receded from it. 
 At 9 o'clock, the whole of India was a little to the 
 west of us, and we saw, as in a map, that fertile 
 and populous region, which has been so strange- 
 ly reduced to subjection, by a company of mer- 
 chants belonging to a country on the opposite side 
 of the globe — a country not equal to one-fourth 
 of it, in extent or population. Its rivers were like 
 small filaments of silver ; the Red Sea resembled 
 a narrow plate of the same metal. The peninsula 
 of India was of a darker, and Arabia of a light 
 and more grayish green. 
 
 The sun's rays striking obliquely on the Atlan- 
 tic, emitted an effulgence that was dazzling to the 
 eyes. For two or three hours the appearance of 
 the earth did not greatly vary, the wider extent of 
 surface we could survey, compensating for our 
 greater distance ; and indeed at that time we 
 could not see the whole horizon, without putting 
 our eyes close to the glass. 
 
51 
 
 When the Brahmin saw that I had overcome 
 my first surprise, and had acquired somewhat of 
 his own composure, he manifested a disposition 
 to beguile the time with conversation. " Look 
 through the telescope, 1 ' said he, " a little from the 
 sun, and observe the continent of Africa, which 
 is presenting itself to our view. 1 ' I took a hasty 
 glance over it, and perceived that its northern 
 edge was fringed with green ; then a dull white 
 belt marked the great Sahara, or Desert, and then 
 it exhibited a deep green again, to its most south- 
 ern extremity. I tried in vain to discover the 
 pyramids, for our telescope had not sufficient 
 power to show them. 
 
 I observed to him, that less was known of this 
 continent than of the others : that a spirit of lively 
 curiosity had been excited by the western nations 
 of Europe, to become acquainted with the inha- 
 bited parts of the globe ; but that all the efforts 
 yet made, had still left a large portion almost en- 
 tirely unknown. I asked if he did not think it 
 probable that some of the nations in the interior 
 of Africa were more advanced in civilization than 
 those on the coast, whose barbarous custom of 
 making slaves of their prisoners, Europeans had 
 encouraged and perpetuated, by purchasing them. 
 
 " No, no, 1 ' said he ; " the benefits of civilization 
 
52 
 
 could not have been so easily confined, but would 
 have spread themselves over every part of that 
 continent, or at least as far as the Great De- 
 sert, if they had ever existed. The intense heat 
 of a climate, lying on each side of the Line, 
 at once disinclines men to exertion, and renders 
 it unnecessary. Vegetable diet is more suited to 
 them than animal, which favours a denser popu- 
 lation. Talent is elicited by the efforts required 
 to overcome difficulties and hardships ; and their 
 natural birth-place is a country of frost and snow 
 — of tempests — of sterility enough to give a spur 
 to exertion, but not enough to extinguish hope. 
 Where these difficulties exist, and give occasion 
 to war and emulation, the powers of the human 
 mind are most frequently developed." 
 
 " Do you think then," said I, " that there is 
 no such thing as natural inferiority and differences 
 of races ?" 
 
 " I have been much perplexed by that ques- 
 tion," said he. " When I regard the great masses 
 of mankind, I think there seems to be among 
 them some characteristic differences. I see that 
 the Europeans have every where obtained the 
 ascendancy over those who inhabit the other 
 quarters of the globe. But when I compare indi- 
 viduals, I see always the same passions, the same 
 
53 
 
 motives, the same mental operations; and my opi- 
 nion is changed. The same seed becomes a very 
 different plant when sowed in one soil or another, 
 and put under this or that mode of cultivation." 
 
 " And may not, 11 said I, " the very nature of 
 the plant be changed, after a long continuance of 
 the same culture in the same soil f" 
 
 " Why, that is but another mode of stating the 
 question. I rather think, if it has generally degene- 
 rated, it may, by opposite treatment, be also gra- 
 dually brought back to its original excellence." 
 
 " Who knows, then," said I, " what our mis- 
 sionaries and colonization societies may effect in 
 Africa." 
 
 He inquired of me what these societies were ; 
 and on explaining their history, observed : " By 
 what you tell me, it is indeed a small beginning ; 
 but if they can get this grain of mustard-seed to 
 grow, there is no saying how much it may multi- 
 ply. See what a handful of colonists have done 
 in your own country, A few ship-loads of English 
 have overspread half a continent; and, from what 
 you tell me, their descendants will amount, in an- 
 other century, to more than one hundred millions. 
 There is no rule," he continued, "that can be 
 laid down on this subject, to which some nations 
 cannot be found to furnish a striking exception. 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 If mere difficulties were all that were wanting 
 to call forth the intellectual energies of man, 
 they have their full share on the borders of the 
 Great Desert. There are in that whitish tract 
 which separates the countries on the southern 
 shores of the Mediterranean from the rest of 
 Africa, thousands of human beings at this moment 
 toiling over that dreary ocean of sand, to whom 
 a draught of fresh water would be a blessing, and 
 the simplest meal a luxury. 
 
 " Perhaps, however, you will say they are so 
 engrossed with the animal wants of hunger and 
 thirst, that they are incapable of attending to any 
 thing else. Be it so. But in the interior they are 
 placed in parallel circumstances with the natives 
 of Europe : they are engaged in struggles for ter- 
 ritory and dominion — for their altars and their 
 homes ; and this state of things, which has made 
 some of them brave and warlike, has made none 
 poets or painters, historians or philosophers. 
 There, poetry has not wanted themes of great 
 achievement and noble daring; but heroes have 
 wanted poets. Nor can we justly ascribe the dif- 
 ference to the enervating influence of climate, for 
 the temperature of the most southern parts of 
 Africa differs little from that of Greece. And the 
 tropical nations, too, of your own continent, the 
 
55 
 
 Peruvians, were more improved than those who 
 inhabited the temperate regions. Besides, though 
 the climate had instilled softness and feebleness 
 of character, it might also have permitted the cul- 
 tivation of the arts, as has been the case with us 
 in Asia. On the whole, without our being able to 
 pronounce with certainty on the subject, it does 
 seem probable that some organic difference exists 
 in the various races of mankind, to which their 
 diversities of moral and intellectual character 
 may in part be referred. 1 ' — By this time the Mo- 
 rea and the Grecian Archipelago were directly 
 under our telescope. 
 
 " Does not Greece," said I, " furnish the clear- 
 est proof of the influence of moral causes on the 
 character of nations ? Compare what that coun- 
 try formerly was, with what it now is. Once supe- 
 rior to all the rest of the habitable globe, (of which 
 it did not constitute the thousandth part,) in let- 
 ters, arts, and arms, and all that distinguishes men 
 from brutes ; not merely in their own estimation, 
 (for all nations are disposed to rate themselves 
 high enough,) but by the general consent of the 
 rest of the world. Do not the most improved and 
 civilized of modern states still take them as their 
 instructors and guides in every species of litera- 
 ture — in philosophy, history, oratory, poetry, ar- 
 
56 
 
 chitecture, and sculpture? And those too, who 
 have attained superiority over the world, in arms, 
 yield a voluntary subjection to the Greeks in the 
 arts. The cause of their former excellence and 
 their present inferiority, is no doubt to be found 
 in their former freedom and their present slavery, 
 and in the loss of that emulation which seems 
 indispensable to natural greatness." 
 
 " Nay, 11 replied he, " I am very far from deny- 
 ing the influence of moral causes on national 
 character. The history of every country affords 
 abundant evidence of it. I mean only to say, that 
 though it does much, it does not do every thing. 
 It seems more reasonable to impute the changes 
 in national character to the mutable habits and 
 institutions of man, than to nature, which is al- 
 ways the same. But if we look a little nearer, we 
 may perhaps perceive, that amidst all those muta- 
 tions in the character of nations, there are stilt 
 some features that are common to the same peo- 
 ple at all times, and which it would therefore be 
 reasonable to impute to the great unvarying laws 
 of nature. Thus it requires no extraordinary 
 acuteness of observation, no strained hypothesis, 
 to perceive a close resemblance between the Ger- 
 mans or the Britons of antiquity and their modern 
 descendants, after the lapse of eighteen centu- 
 
57 
 
 ries, and an entire revolution in government, reli- 
 gion, language, and laws. And travellers still 
 perceive among the inhabitants of modern Greece, 
 deteriorated and debased as they are by political 
 servitude, many of those qualities which distin- 
 guished their predecessors : the same natural 
 acuteness — the same sensibility to pleasure — the 
 same pliancy of mind and elasticity of body — the 
 same aptitude for the arts of imitation — and the 
 same striking physiognomy. That bright, serene 
 sky — that happy combination of land and water, 
 constituting the perfection of the picturesque, and 
 that balmy softness of its air, which have proved 
 themselves so propitious to forms of beauty, 
 agility, and strength, also operate benignantly on 
 the mind which animates them. Whilst the fruit 
 is still fair to the eye, it is not probable that it has 
 permanently degenerated in fragrance or flavour. 
 The great diversities of national character may, 
 perhaps, be attributed principally to moral and 
 accidental causes, but partly also to climate, and 
 to original diversities in the different races of 
 man. 1 ' 
 
58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Continuation of the voyage — View of Europe ; 
 Atlantic Ocean ; America-^- Speculations on the 
 future destiny of the United States — Moral 
 reflections — Pacific Ocean — Hypothesis on the 
 origin of the Moon. 
 
 By this time the whole Mediterranean Sea, 
 which, with the Arabian Gulf, was seen to sepa- 
 rate Africa from Europe and Asia, was full in our 
 view. The political divisions of these quarters of 
 the world were, of course, undistinguishable ; and 
 few of the natural were discernible by the naked 
 eye. The Alps were marked by a white streak, 
 though less bright than the water. By the aid of 
 our glass, we could just discern the Danube, the 
 Nile, and a river which empties itself into the 
 Gulf of Guinea, and which I took to be the Niger : 
 but the other streams were not perceptible. The 
 most conspicuous object of the solid part of the 
 globe, was the Great Desert before mentioned. 
 The whole of Africa, indeed, was of a lighter hue 
 than either Asia or Europe, owing, I presume, to 
 its having a greater proportion of sandy soil : and 
 
59 
 
 I could not avoid contrasting, in my mind, the 
 colour of these continents, as they now appeared, 
 with the complexions of their respective inhabi- 
 tants. 
 
 I was struck too, with the vast disproportion 
 which the extent of the several countries of the 
 earth bore to the part they had acted in history, 
 and the influence they had exerted on human 
 affairs. The British islands had diminished to a 
 speck, and France was little larger ; yet, a few 
 years ago it seemed, at least to us in the United 
 States, as if there were no other nations on the 
 earth. The Brahmin, who was well read in Eu- 
 ropean history, on my making a remark on this 
 subject, reminded me that Athens and Sparta had 
 once obtained almost equal celebrity, although 
 they were so small as not now to be visible. As I 
 slowly passed the telescope over the face of Eu- 
 rope, I pictured to myself the fat, plodding Hol- 
 lander — the patient, contemplative German — 
 the ingenious, sensual Italian — the temperate 
 Swiss — the haughty, superstitious Spaniard — the 
 sprightly, self-complacent Frenchman — the sul- 
 len and reflecting Englishman — who monopolize 
 nearly all the science and literature of the earth, 
 to which they bear so small a proportion. As the 
 Atlantic fell under our view, two faint circles on 
 
60 
 
 each side of the equator, were to be perceived by 
 the naked eye. They were less bright than the rest 
 of the ocean. The Brahmin suggested that they 
 might be currents ; which brought to my memory 
 Dr. Franklin's conjecture on the subject, now 
 completely verified by this circular line of vapour, 
 as it had been previously rendered probable by 
 the floating substances, which had been occa- 
 sionally picked up, at great distances from the 
 places where they had been thrown into the 
 ocean. The circle was whiter and more distinct, 
 where the Gulf Stream runs parallel to the Ame- 
 rican coast, and gradually grew fainter as it 
 passed along the Banks of Newfoundland, to the 
 coast of Europe, where, taking a southerly direc- 
 tion, the line of the circle was barely discernible. 
 A similar circle of vapour, though less defined and 
 complete, was perceived in the South Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 When the coast of my own beloved country 
 first presented itself to my view, I experienced 
 the liveliest emotions; and I felt so anxious to see 
 my children and friends, that I would gladly have 
 given up all the promised pleasures of our expe- 
 dition. I even ventured to hint my feelings to 
 the Brahmin ; but he, gently rebuking my impa- 
 tience, said — 
 
61 
 
 " If to return home had been your only object, 
 and not to see what not one of your nation or 
 race has ever yet seen, you ought to have so in- 
 formed me, that we might have arranged matters 
 accordingly. I do not wish you to return to your 
 country, until you will be enabled to make your- 
 self welcome and useful there, by what you may 
 see in the lunar world. Take courage, then, my 
 friend ; you have passed the worst ; and, as the 
 proverb says, do not, when you have swallowed 
 the ox, now choke at the tail. Besides, although 
 we made all possible haste in descending, we 
 should, ere we reached the surface, find ourselves 
 to the west of your continent, and be compelled 
 then to choose between some part of Asia or the 
 Pacific Ocean. 11 
 
 " Let us then proceed,' 1 said I, mortified at the 
 imputation on my courage, and influenced yet 
 more, perhaps, by the last argument. The Brah- 
 min then tried to soothe my disappointment, by 
 his remarks on my native land. 
 
 " I have a great curiosity, 11 said he, " to see a 
 country where a man, by his labour, can earn as 
 much in a month as will procure him bread, and 
 meat too, for the whole year ; in a week, as will 
 pay his dues to the government; and in one or 
 two days, as will buy him an acre of good land : 
 6 
 
G2 
 
 where every man preaches whatever religion he 
 pleases ; where the priests of the different sects 
 never fight, and seldom quarrel ; and, stranger 
 than all, where the authority of government de- 
 rives no aid from an army, and that of the priests 
 no support from the lnw."" 
 
 I told him, when he should see these things in 
 operation with his own eyes, as I trusted he would, 
 if it pleased heaven to favour our undertakings, 
 they would appear less strange. I reminded him 
 of the peculiar circumstances under which our 
 countrymen had commenced their career. 
 
 " In all other countries," said I, " civilization 
 and population have gone hand in hand ; and the 
 necessity of an increasing subsistence for increas- 
 ing numbers, has been the parent of useful arts 
 and of social improvement. In every successive 
 stage of their advancement, such countries have 
 equally felt the evils occasioned by a scanty and 
 precarious subsistence. In America, however, the 
 people are in the full enjoyment of all the arts of 
 civilization, while they are unrestricted in then- 
 means of subsistence, and consequently in their 
 power of multiplication. From this singular state 
 of things, two consequences result. One is, that 
 the progress of the nation in wealth, power, and 
 greatness, is more rapid than the world has ever 
 
63 
 
 before witnessed. Another is, that our people, 
 being less cramped and fettered by their necessi- 
 ties, an3 feeling, of course, less of those moral 
 evils which poverty and discomfort engender, 
 their character, moral and intellectual, will be 
 developed and matured with greater celerity, and, 
 I incline to think, carried to a higher point of 
 excellence than has ever yet been attained. I 
 anticipate for them the eloquence and art of 
 Athens — the courage and love of country of 
 Sparta — the constancy and military prowess of 
 the Romans — the science and literature of Eng- 
 land and France — the industry of the Dutch — the 
 temperance and obedience to the laws of the 
 Swiss. In fifty years, their numbers will amount 
 to forty millions ; in a century, to one hundred 
 and sixty millions ; in two centuries, (allowing for 
 a decreasing rate of multiplication,) to three or 
 four hundred millions. Nor does it seem impos- 
 sible that, from the structure of their government, 
 they may continue united for a few great national 
 purposes, while each State may make the laws 
 that are suited to its peculiar habits, character, 
 and circumstances. In another half century, they 
 will extend the christian religion and the English 
 language to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 " To the south of them, on the same continent, 
 
64 
 
 other great nations will arise, who, if they were to 
 be equally united, might contend in terrible con- 
 flicts for the mastery of this great continent, and 
 even of the world. But when they shall be com- 
 pletely liberated from the yoke of Spanish domi- 
 nion, and have for some time enjoyed that full 
 possession of their faculties and energies which 
 liberty only can give, they will probably split into 
 distinct States. United, at first, by the sympathy 
 of men struggling in the same cause, and by simi- 
 larity of manners and religion, they will, after a 
 while, do as men always have done, quarrel and 
 fight ; and these wars will check their social im- 
 provement, and mar their political hopes. Whe- 
 ther they will successively fall under the dominion 
 of one able and fortunate leader, or, like the 
 motley sovereignties of Europe, preserve their 
 integrity by their mutual jealousy, time only can 
 show." 
 
 " Your reasoning about the natives of Spanish 
 America appears very probable," said the Brah- 
 min ; " but is it not equally applicable .to your 
 own country ?" 
 
 I reminded him of the peculiar advantages of 
 our government. He shook his head. 
 
 " No, Atterley," said he, " do not deceive your- 
 self. The duration of every species of polity is un- 
 
65 
 
 certain ; the works of nature alone are permanent. 
 The motions of the heavenly bodies are the same 
 as they were thousands of years ago. But not so 
 with the works of man. He is the identical ani- 
 mal that he ever was. His political institutions, 
 however cunningly devised, have always been yet 
 more perishable than his structures of stone and 
 marble. This is according to all past history : 
 and do not, therefore, count upon an exception in 
 your favour, that would be little short of the mi- 
 raculous. But,' 1 he good-naturedly added, " such 
 a miracle may take place in your system ; and, 
 although I do not expect it, I sincerely wish it." 
 
 We were now able to see one half of the broad 
 expanse of the Pacific, which glistened with the 
 brightness of quicksilver or polished steel. 
 
 " Cast your eyes to the north," said he, " and 
 see where your continent and mine approach so 
 near as almost to touch. Both these coasts are 
 at this time thinly inhabited by a rude and mise- 
 rable people, whose whole time is spent in strug- 
 gling against the rigours of their dreary climate, 
 and the scantiness of its productions. Yet, per- 
 haps the Indians and the Kamtschadales will be 
 gradually moulded into a hardy, civilized people : 
 and here may be the scene of many a fierce con- 
 flict between your people and the Russians, whose 
 6* 
 
6G 
 
 numbers, now four times as great as yours, in- 
 crease almost as rapidly." 
 
 He then amused me with accounts of the man- 
 ners and mode of life of the Hyperborean race, 
 with whom he had once passed a summer. Glan- 
 cing my eye then to the south, — " See," said I, 
 " while the Kamtschadale is providing his supply 
 of furs and of fish, for the long winter which is 
 already knocking at the door of his hut, the gay 
 and voluptuous native of the Sandwich and other 
 islands between the tropics. How striking the 
 contrast ! The one passes his life in ease, abun- 
 dance, and enjoyment ; the other in toil, priva- 
 tion, and care. No inclemency of the seasons 
 inflicts present suffering on these happy islanders, 
 or brings apprehensions for the future. Nature 
 presents them with her most delicious fruits spon- 
 taneously and abundantly; and she has implanted 
 in their breast a lively relish for the favours she so 
 lavishly bestows upon them." 
 
 The Brahmin, after musing a while, replied : 
 " The difference is far less than you imagine. 
 Perhaps, on balancing their respective pleasures 
 and pains, the superior gain of the islander will 
 be reduced to nothing : for, as to the simplest 
 source of gratification, that of palatable food, if 
 nature produces it more liberally in the islands, 
 
67 
 
 she also produces there more mouths to consume 
 it. The richest Kamtschadale may, indeed, 
 oftener go without a dinner than the richest Ota- 
 heitan ; but it may be quite the reverse with the 
 poorest. Then, as to quality of the food : if na- 
 ture has provided more delicious fruits for the 
 natives of tropical climates, she has given a 
 sharper appetite and stronger digestion to the 
 Hyperborean, which equalizes the sum of their 
 enjoyments. A dry crust is relished, when an indi- 
 vidual is hungry, more than the most savoury and 
 delicate dainties when he is in a fever ; and water 
 to one man, is a more delicious beverage than the 
 juice of the grape or of the palm to another. As 
 to the necessity for labour, which is ever press- 
 ing on the inhabitants of cold countries, it is this 
 consequent and incessant activity which gives 
 health to their bodies, and cheerful vigour to their 
 minds; since, without such exercise, man would 
 have been ever a prey to disease and discontent. 
 And, if no other occupation be provided for the 
 mind of man, it carves out employment for itself 
 in vain regrets and gloomy forebodings — in jea- 
 lousy, envy, and the indulgence of every hateful 
 and tormenting passion : hence the proverb, — ' If 
 you want corn, cultivate your soil ; if you want 
 weeds, let it alone.' 
 
GS 
 
 " But again : the native of those sunny isles ia 
 never sensible of the bounty of Providence, till he 
 is deprived of it. Here, as well as every where 
 else, desire outgoes gratification. Man sees or 
 fancies much that he cannot obtain ; and in his 
 regret for what he wants, forgets what he already 
 possesses. What is it to one with a tooth-ache, 
 that a savoury dish is placed before him ? It is 
 the same with the mind as the body : when pain 
 engrosses it in one way, it cannot relish pleasure 
 in another. Every climate and country too, have 
 their own evils and inconveniences.' 1 
 
 " You think, then," said I, " that the native of 
 Kamtschatka has the advantage V 
 
 " No,' 1 he rejoined, " I do not mean to say 
 that, for the evils of his situation are likewise 
 very great ; but they are more manifest, and 
 therefore less necessary to be brought to your 
 notice." 
 
 It was now, by our time-pieces, about two 
 o'clock in the afternoon — that is, two hours had 
 elapsed since we left terra firma ; and, saving a 
 few biscuits and a glass of cordial a-piece, we had 
 not taken any sort of refreshment. The Brahmin 
 proposed that we now should dine ; and, opening 
 a small case, and drawing forth a cold fowl, a 
 piece of dried goat's flesh, a small pot of ghee, 
 
69 
 
 some biscuits, and a bottle of arrack flavoured 
 with ginger and spices, with a larger one of wa- 
 ter, we ate as heartily as we had ever done at the 
 hermitage ; the slight motion of our machine to 
 one side or the other, whenever we moved, giving 
 us nearly as much exercise as a vessel in a smooth 
 sea. The animal food had been provided for me, 
 for the Brahmin satisfied his hunger with the 
 ghee, sweetmeats, and biscuit, and ate sparingly 
 even of them. We each took two glasses of the 
 cordial diluted with water, and carefully putting 
 back the fragments, again turned our thoughts 
 to the planet we had left. 
 
 The middle of the Pacific now lay immediately 
 beneath us. I had never before been struck with 
 the irregular distribution of land and water on 
 our globe, the expanse of ocean here being twice 
 as large as in any other part ; and, on remarking 
 this striking difference to the Brahmin, he replied: 
 
 " It is the opinion of some philosophers in the 
 moon, that their globe is a fragment of ours ; 
 and, as they can see every part of the earth's sur- 
 face, they believe the Pacific was the place from 
 which the moon was ejected. They pretend that 
 a short, but consistent tradition of the disruption, 
 has regularly been transmitted from remote anti- 
 quity ; and they draw confirmation of their hypo- 
 
70 
 
 thesis from many words of the Chinese, and other 
 Orientals, with whom they claim affinity. 11 
 
 " Ridiculous I 11 said I ; " the moon is one- 
 fourth the diameter of the earth ; and if the two 
 were united in one sphere, the highest mountains 
 must have been submerged, and of course there 
 would have been no human inhabitants ; or, if 
 any part of the land was then bare, on the waters 
 retiring to fill up the chasm inude by the separa- 
 tion of so large a body as the moon, the parts 
 before habitable would be, instead of two, three, 
 or at most four miles, as your Himalah mountains 
 are said to be, some twenty or thirty miles above 
 the level of the ocean. 11 
 
 " That is not quite so certain, 11 said he : " we 
 know not of what the interior of the earth is com- 
 posed, any more than we could distinguish the 
 contents of an egg, by penetrating one hundredth 
 part of its shell. But we see, that if one drop of 
 water be united with another, they form one large 
 drop, as spherical as either of the two which 
 composed it : and on the separation of the moon 
 from the earth, if they were composed of mingled 
 solids and fluids, or if the solid parts rested on 
 fluid, both the fragment and the remaining earth 
 would assume the same globular appearance they 
 now present. 
 
71 
 
 " On this subject, however, I give no opinion, 
 I only say, that it is not contradicted by the facts 
 you have mentioned. The fluid and the solid 
 parts settling down into a new sphere, might still 
 retain nearly their former proportion : or, if the 
 fragment took away a greater proportion of solid 
 than of fluid, then the waters retiring to fill up the 
 cavity, would leave parts bare which they had 
 formerly covered. There are some facts which 
 give a colour to this supposition ; for most of the 
 high mountains of the earth afford evidence of 
 former submersion ; and those which are the high- 
 est, the Himalah, are situated in the country to 
 which the origin of civilization, and even the hu- 
 man species itself, may be traced. The moon 
 too, we know, has much less water than the earth : 
 and all those appearances of violence, which have 
 so puzzled cosmogonists, the topsy-turvy position 
 in which vegetable substances are occasionally 
 found beneath the soil on which they grew, and 
 the clear manifestations of the action of water, in 
 the formation of strata, in the undulating forms it 
 has left, and in the correspondent salient and 
 retiring angles of mountains and opposite coasts, 
 were all caused by the disruption ; and as the 
 moon has a smaller proportion of water than the 
 earth, she has also the highest mountains," 
 
72 
 
 " But, father, 1 ' said I, " the diameter of the 
 earth being but four times as large as that of the 
 moon, how can the violent separation of so large 
 a portion of our planet be accounted for ? Where 
 is the mighty agent to rend off such a mass, and 
 throw it to thirty times the earth's diameter ?" 
 
 " Upon that subject," said he, " the Lunarian 
 sages are much divided. Many hypotheses have 
 been suggested on the subject, some of which are 
 very ingenious, and all very fanciful : but the two 
 most celebrated, and into which all the others are 
 now merged, are those of Neerlego and Darcan- 
 darca ; the former of whom, in a treatise extend- 
 ing to nine quarto volumes, has maintained that 
 the disruption was caused by a comet; and the lat- 
 ter, in a work yet more voluminous, has endeavour- 
 ed to prove, that when the materials of the moon 
 composed a part of the earth, this planet contain- 
 ed large masses of water, which, though the par- 
 ticles cohered with each other, were disposed to 
 fly off from the earth ; and that, by an accumula- 
 tion of the electric fluid, according to laws which 
 he has attempted to explain, the force was at 
 length sufficient to heave the rocks which encom- 
 passed these masses, from their beds, and to pro- 
 ject them from the earth, when, partaking of the 
 earth's diurnal motion, they assumed a spherical 
 
73 
 
 form, and revolved around it. And further, that 
 because the moon is composed of two sorts of 
 matter, that are differently affected towards the 
 earth in its revolution round that planet, the same 
 parts of its surface always maintain some relative 
 position to us, which thus necessarily causes the 
 singularity of her turning on her axis precisely in 
 the time in which she revolves round the earth." 
 
 " I see," said I, " that doctors differ and dis- 
 pute about their own fancies every where." 
 
 " That is," said he, " because they contend as 
 vehemently for what they imagine as for what 
 they see ; and perhaps more so, as their percep- 
 tions are like those of other men, while their reve- 
 ries are more exclusively their own. Thus, in the 
 present instance, the controversy turns upon the 
 mode in which the separation was effected, which 
 affords the widest field for conjecture, while they 
 both agree that such separation has taken place. 
 As to this fact I have not yet made up my mind, 
 though it must be confessed that there is much to 
 give plausibility to their opinion. I recognise, for 
 instance, a striking resemblance between the ani- 
 mal and vegetable productions of Asia and those 
 of the moon." 
 
 " Do you think, father," said I, " that animal, 
 
74 
 
 or even vegetable life, could possibly exist in such 
 a disruption as is supposed ?" 
 
 "Why not?" said he: "you are not to ima- 
 gine that the shock would be felt in proportion to 
 the mass that was moved. On the contrary, 
 while it would occasion, in some parts, a great 
 destruction of life, it would, in others, not be felt 
 more than an earthquake, or rather, than a 
 succession of earthquakes, during the time that 
 the different parts of the mass were adjusting 
 themselves to a spherical form ; whilst a few 
 pairs, or even a single pair of animals, saved in 
 some cavity of a mountain, would be sufficient, in 
 a few centuries, to stock the whole surface of the 
 earth with as many individuals as are now to be 
 found on it. 
 
 " After all," he added, " it is often difficult in 
 science to distinguish Truth from the plausibility 
 which personates her. But let us not, however, 
 be precipitate ; let us but hear both sides. In the 
 east we have a saying, that ' he who hears with 
 but one ear, never hears well.' " 
 
75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The voyage continued — Second view of Asia — 
 The Brahmin 's speculations concerning India — 
 Increase of the Moon's attraction — Appearance 
 of the Moon — They land on the Moon. 
 
 The dryness of the preceding discussion, which 
 lay out of the course of my studies, together with 
 the effect of my dinner, began to make me a lit- 
 tle drowsy; whereupon the Brahmin urged me 
 to take the repose which it was clear I needed ; 
 remarking, that when I awoke, he would follow 
 my example. Recliuing my head, then, on my 
 cloak, in a few minutes my senses were steeped 
 in forgetfulness. 
 
 I slept about six hours most profoundly, and 
 on waking, found the good Brahmin busy with 
 his calculations of our progress. I insisted on his 
 now taking some rest. After requesting me to 
 wake him at the end of three hours, (or sooner, if 
 any thing of moment should occur,) and putting 
 up a short prayer, which was manifested by his 
 looks, rather than by his words, he laid himself 
 down, and soon fell into a quiet sleep. 
 
70 
 
 Left now to my own meditations, and unsup- 
 ported by the example and conversation of my 
 friend, I felt my first apprehensions return, and 
 began seriously to regret my rashness in thus 
 venturing on so bold an experiment, which, how- 
 ever often repeated with success, must ever be 
 hazardous, and which could plead little more in 
 its favour than a vain and childish curiosity. I 
 took up a book, but whilst my eye ran over the 
 page, I understood but little what I read, and 
 could not relish even that. I now looked down 
 through the telescope, and found the earth sur- 
 prisingly diminished in her apparent dimensions, 
 from the increased rapidity of our ascent. The 
 eastern coasts of Asia were still fully in view, as 
 well as the entire figure of .that vast continent — 
 of New Holland — of Ceylon, and of Borneo; but 
 the smaller islands were invisible. I strained my 
 eye to no purpose, to follow the indentations of 
 the coast, according to the map before me ; 
 the great bays and promontories could alone be 
 perceived. The Burman Empire, in one of the 
 insignificant villages of which I had been confined 
 for a few years, was now reduced to a speck. 
 The agreeable hours 1 had passed with the Brah- 
 min, with the little daughter of Sing Fou, and 
 my rambling over the neighbouring heights, all 
 
77 
 
 recurred to my mind, and I almost regretted the 
 pleasures I had relinquished. I tried, with more 
 success, to beguile the time by making notes in 
 my journal ; and after having devoted about an 
 hour to this object, I returned to the telescope, 
 and now took occasion to examine the figure of 
 the earth near the Poles, with a view of discover- 
 ing whether its form favoured Captain Symmes's 
 theory of an aperture existing there ; and I am 
 convinced that that ingenious gentleman is mis- 
 taken. Time passed so heavily during these soli- 
 tary occupations, that I looked at my watch every 
 five minutes, and could scarcely be persuaded it 
 was not out of order. I then took up my little 
 Bible, (which had always been my travelling com- 
 panion,) read a few chapters in St. Matthew, and 
 found my feelings tranquillized, and my courage 
 increased. The desired hour at length arrived; 
 when, on waking the old man, he alertly raised 
 himself up, and at the first view of the diminished 
 appearance of the earth, observed that our jour- 
 ney was a third over, as to time, but not as to 
 distance. After a few moments, the Brahmin 
 again cast his eye towards his own natal soil ; on 
 beholding which, he fetched a deep sigh, and, if 
 I was not mistaken, I saw a rising tear. 
 
 " Alas !" said he, " my country and my coun- 
 7* 
 
trymen, how different you are in many respects 
 from what I should wish you to be ! And yet I do 
 not love you the less. Perhaps I love you the 
 more for your faults, as well as for your misfor- 
 tunes. 
 
 " Our lot, 1 ' continued he, " is a hard one. That 
 quarter of the world has sent letters, and arts, and 
 religion abroad to adorn and benefit the other 
 four ; and these, the chief of human blessings 
 and glories, have deserted us !" 
 
 I told him that I had heard the honours, which 
 he claimed for India, attributed to Egypt. He 
 contended, with true love of country, great plau- 
 sibility, and an intimate knowledge of Oriental 
 history, that letters and the arts had been first 
 transplanted from Asia into Egypt. 
 
 " No other part of Africa," said he, " saving 
 Egypt, can boast of any ancient monuments of 
 the arts or of civilization. Even the pyramids, 
 the great boast of Egypt, are proofs of nothing 
 more than ordinary patient labour, directed by 
 despotic power. Besides, look at that vast region, 
 extending five thousand miles from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Cape of Good Hope, and four thou- 
 sand from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. Its 
 immense surface contains only ignorant barba- 
 rians, who are as uncivilized now as they were 
 
79 
 
 three thousand years ago. Is it likely that if 
 civilization and letters originated in Egypt, as is 
 sometimes pretended, it would have spread so 
 extensively in one direction, and not at all in an- 
 other ? I make no exception in favour of the 
 Carthagenians, whose origin was comparatively 
 recent, and who, we know, were a colony from 
 Asia.*" 
 
 I was obliged to admit the force of this reason- 
 ing ; and, when he proceeded to descant on the 
 former glories and achievements of Asiatic na- 
 tions, and their sad reverses of fortune — while he 
 freely spoke of the present degradation and imbe- 
 cility of his countrymen, he promptly resisted 
 every censure of mine. It was easy, indeed, to 
 see that he secretly cherished a hope that the day 
 would come, when the whole of Hindostan would 
 be emancipated from its European masters, and 
 assume that rank among nations to which the 
 genius of its inhabitants entitled it. He admitted 
 that the dominion of the English was less oppres- 
 sive than that of their native princes ; but said, 
 that there was this great difference between fo- 
 reign and domestic despotism, — that the former 
 completely extinguished all national pride, which 
 is as much the cause as the effect of national 
 greatness. 
 
80 
 
 I asked him whether he thought if his country- 
 men were to shake oft' the yoke of the English, 
 they could maintain their independence ? 
 
 " Undoubtedly," said he. " Who would be able 
 to conquer us ?" 
 
 I suggested to him that they might tempt the 
 ambition of Russia; and cautiously inquired, whe- 
 ther the abstinence from animnl food might not 
 render his country much less capable of resist- 
 ance ; and whether it might not serve to explain 
 why India had so often been the prey of foreign 
 conquest ? Of this, however, he would hear no- 
 thing ; but replied, with more impatience than 
 was usual with him — 
 
 " It is true, Hindostan was invaded by Alexan- 
 der — but not conquered ; and that it has since 
 submitted, in succession, to the Arabians, to the 
 Tartars, under Genghis Khan, and under Tamer- 
 lane ; to the Persians, under Nadir Shah, and, 
 finally, to the British. But there are few countries 
 of Europe which have not been conquered as 
 often. That nation from which you are descend- 
 ed, and to which mine is now subject, furnishes 
 no exception, as it has been subjugated, in succes- 
 sion, by the Romans, the Danes, the Saxons, the 
 Normans. And, as to courage, we see no differ- 
 ence between those Asiatics who eat animal food 
 
81 
 
 as you do, and those who abstain from it as I do. 
 I am told that the Scotch peasantry eat much 
 less animal food than the English, and the Irish 
 far less than they ; and yet, that these rank among 
 the best troops of the British. But surely a nation 
 ought not to be suspected of fearing death, whose 
 very women show a contempt of life which no 
 other people have exhibited." 
 
 This led us to talk of that strange custom of 
 his country, which impels the widow to throw her- 
 self on the funeral pile of her husband, and to be 
 consumed with him. I told him that it had often 
 been represented as compulsory — or, in other 
 words, that it was said that every art and means 
 were resorted to, for the purpose of working on 
 the mind of the woman, by her relatives, aided by 
 the priests, who would be naturally gratified by 
 such signal triumphs of religion over the strongest 
 feelings of nature. He admitted that these en- 
 gines were sometimes put in operation, and that 
 they impelled to the sacrifice, some who were 
 wavering ; but insisted, that in a majority of in- 
 stances the Suttee was voluntary. 
 
 " Women," said he, " are brought up from 
 their infancy, to regard our sex as their superiors, 
 and to believe that their greatest merit consists in 
 entire devotion to their husbands. Under this 
 
82 
 
 feeling, and having, at the same time, their atten- 
 tion frequently turned to the chance of such a 
 calamity, they are better prepared to meet it when 
 it occurs. How few of the officers in your western 
 armies, ever hesitate to march, at the head of their 
 men, on a forlorn hope ? and how many even court 
 the danger for the sake of the glory ? Nay, you tell 
 me that, according to your code of honour, if one 
 man insults another, he who gives the provoca- 
 tion, and he who receives it, rather than be dis- 
 graced in the eyes of their countrymen, will go 
 out, and quietly shoot at each other with fire- 
 arms, till one of them is killed or wounded ; and 
 this too, in many cases, when the injury has been 
 merely nominal. If you show such a contempt of 
 death, in deference to a custom founded in mere 
 caprice, can it be wondered that a woman should 
 show it, in the first paroxysms of her grief for the 
 loss of him to whom was devoted every thought, 
 word, and action of her life, and who, next to her 
 God, was the object of her idolatry ? My dear 
 Atterley,' 1 he continued, with emotion, " you lit- 
 tle know the strength of woman's love !'* 
 
 Here he abruptly broke off the conversation ; 
 and, after continuing thoughtful and silent for 
 some time, he remarked : 
 
 " But do not forget where we are. Nature 
 
83 
 
 demands her accustomed rest, and let us prepare 
 to indulge her. I feel little inclined to sleep at 
 present ; yet, by the time you have taken some 
 hours 1 repose, I shall probably require the same 
 refreshment. 1 ' 
 
 I would willingly have listened longer; but, 
 yielding to his prudent suggestion, again compos- 
 ed myself to rest, and left my good monitor to his 
 melancholy meditations. When I had slept about 
 four hours, I was awakened by the Brahmin, in 
 whose arms I found myself, and who, feeble as he 
 was, handled me with the ease that a nurse does 
 a child, or rather, as a child does her doll. On 
 looking around, I found myself lying on what had 
 been the ceiling of our chamber, which still, how- 
 ever, felt like the bottom. My eyes and my feel- 
 ings were thus in collision, and I could only 
 account for what I saw, by supposing that the 
 machine had been turned upside down. I was 
 bewildered and alarmed. 
 
 After enjoying my surprise for a moment, the 
 Brahmin observed : " We have, while you were 
 asleep, passed the middle point between the 
 earth's and the moon's attraction, and we now 
 gravitate less towards our own planet than her 
 satellite. I took the precaution to move you, be- 
 fore you fell by your own gravity, from what was 
 
84 
 
 lately the bottom, to that which is now so, and to 
 keep you in this place until you were retained in 
 it by the moon's attraction ; for, though your fall 
 would have been, at this point, like that of a fea- 
 ther, yet it would have given you some shock and 
 alarm. The machine, therefore, has undergone 
 no change in its position or course ; the change 
 is altogether in our feelings." 
 
 The Brahmin then, after having looked through 
 either telescope, but for a longer time through the 
 one at the bottom, and having performed his cus- 
 tomary devotions, soon fell into a slumber, but 
 not into the same quiet sleep as before, for he was 
 often interrupted by sudden starts, of so distress- 
 ing a character, that I was almost tempted to 
 wake him. After a while, however, he seemed 
 more composed, when I betook myself to the 
 telescope turned towards the earth. 
 
 The earth's appearance I found so diminished 
 as not to exceed four times the diameter of the 
 moon, as seen from the earth, and its whole 
 face was entirely changed. After the first sur- 
 prise, I recollected it was the moon I was then 
 regarding, and my curiosity was greatly awaken- 
 ed. On raising myself up, and looking through 
 the upper telescope, the earth presented an ap- 
 pearance not very dissimilar ; but the outline of 
 
85 
 
 her continents and oceans were still perceptible, 
 in different shades, and capable^of being easily 
 recognised ; but the bright glare of the sun made 
 the surfaces of both bodies rather dim and pale. 
 
 After a short interval, I again looked at the 
 moon, and found not only its magnitude very 
 greatly increased, but that it was beginning to 
 present a more beautiful spectacle. The sun's 
 rays fell obliquely on her disc, so that by a large 
 part of its surface not reflecting the light, I saw 
 every object on it, so far as I was enabled by the 
 power of my telescope. Its mountains, lakes, seas, 
 continents, and islands, were faintly, though not 
 indistinctly, traced ; and every moment brought 
 forth something new to catch my eye, and awaken 
 my curiosity. The whole face of the moon was 
 of a silvery hue, relieved and varied by the softest 
 and most delicate shades. No cloud nor speck 
 of vapour intercepted my view. One of my excla- 
 mations of delight awakened the Brahmin, who 
 quickly arose, and looking down on the resplen- 
 dent orb below us, observed that we must soon 
 begin to slacken the rapidity of our course, by 
 throwing out ballast* The moon's dimensions 
 now rapidly increased ; the separate mountains, 
 which formed the ridges and chains on her sur- 
 face, began to be plainly visible through the tele- 
 
86 
 
 scope ; whilst, on the shaded side, several volca- 
 noes appeared upon her disc, lik<4 the Hashes of 
 our fire-fly, or rather like the twinkling of stars 
 in a frosty night. He remarked, that the extraor- 
 dinary clearness and brightness of the objects on 
 the moon's surface, was owing to' her having a 
 less extensive and more transparent atmosphere 
 than the earth : adding — " The difference is so 
 great, that some of our astronomical observers 
 have been induced to think she has none. If that, 
 however, had been the case, our voyage would 
 have been impracticable." 
 
 After gazing at the magnificent spectacle, with 
 admiration and delight, for half an hour, the Brah- 
 min loosed one of the balls of the lunar metal, for 
 the purpose of checking our velocity. At this 
 time he supposed we were not more than four 
 thousand miles, or about twice the moon's diam- 
 eter, from the nearest point of her surface. In 
 about four hours more, her apparent magnitude 
 was so great, that we could see her by looking out 
 of either of the dark side-windows. Her disc had 
 now lost its former silvery appearance, and began 
 to look more like that of the earth, when seen at 
 the same distance. It was a most gratifying specta- 
 cle to behold the objects successively rising to our 
 view, and steadily enlarging in their dimensions. 
 
87 
 
 The rapidity with which we approached the 
 moon, impressed me, in spite of myself, with the 
 alarming sensation of falling ; and I found myself 
 alternately agitated with a sense of this danger, 
 and with impatience to take a nearer view of the 
 new objects that greeted my eyes. The Brahmin 
 was wholly absorbed in calculations for the pur- 
 pose of adjusting our velocity to the distance we 
 had to go, his estimates of which, however, were 
 in a great measure conjectural ; and ever and 
 anon he would let off a ball of the lunar metal. 
 
 After a few hours, we were so near the moon 
 that every object was seen in our glass, as dis- 
 tinctly as the shells or marine plants through a 
 piece of shallow sea-water, though the eye could 
 take in but a small part of her surface, and the 
 horizon, which bounded our view, was rapidly 
 contracting. On letting the air escape from our 
 machine, it did not now rush out with the same 
 violence as before, which showed that we were 
 within the moon's atmosphere. This, as well as 
 ridding ourselves of the metal balls, aided in 
 checking our progress. By and bye we were 
 within a few miles of the highest mountains, when 
 we threw down so much of our ballast, that we 
 soon appeared almost stationary. The Brahmin 
 remarked, that he should avail himself of the cur- 
 
88 
 
 rents of air we might meet with, to select a 
 favourable place for landing, though we were 
 necessarily attracted towards the same region, in 
 consequence of the same half of the moon's sur- 
 face being always turned towards the earth. 
 
 " In our second voyage,' 1 said he, " we were 
 glad to get foothold any where; for, not having 
 lightened our machine sufficiently, we came down, 
 with a considerable concussion, on a barren field, 
 remote from any human habitation, and suffered 
 more from hunger and cold, for nearly three days, 
 than we had done from the perils and privations of 
 the voyage. The next time we aimed at landing 
 near the town of Alamatua, which stands, as you 
 may see, a little to the right of us, upon an island 
 in a lake, and looks like an emerald set in silver. 
 We came down very gently, it is true, but we 
 struck one of the numerous boats which ply 
 around the island, and had nearly occasioned the 
 loss of our lives, as well as of theirs. In our last 
 voyage we were every way fortunate. The first 
 part of the moon we approached, was a level 
 plain, of great extent, divided into corn-fields, on 
 which, having lowered our grapnel, we drew our- 
 selves down without difficulty. 
 
 " We must now," continued he, " look out for 
 some cultivated field, in one of the valleys we arc 
 
89 
 
 approaching, where we may rely on being not far 
 from some human abode, and on escaping the 
 perils of rocks, trees, and buildings." 
 
 While the Brahmin was speaking, a gentle 
 breeze arose, as appeared by our horizontal mo- 
 tion, which wafted us at the rate of about ten 
 miles an hour, in succession, over a ridge of moun- 
 tains, a lake, a thick wood, and a second lake, 
 until at length we reached a cultivated region, 
 recognised by the Brahmin as the country of the 
 Morosofs, the place we were most anxious to 
 reach. 
 
 " Let off two of the balls of lead to the earth," 
 said he. I did so, and we descended rapidly. 
 When we were sufficiently near the ground to see 
 that it was a fit place for landing, we opened the 
 door, and found the air of the moon inconceiva- 
 bly sweet and refreshing. We now loosed one of 
 the lower balls, and somewhat checked our de- 
 scent. In a few minutes more, however, we were 
 within twenty yards of the ground, when we let 
 go the largest ball of lunarium, which, having a 
 cord attached to it, served us in lieu of a grapnel. 
 It descended with great force to the ground, while 
 the machine, thus lightened, was disposed to 
 mount again. We, however, drew ourselves down; 
 and as soon as the machine touched the ground, 
 
90 
 
 we let oft' some of our leaden balls to keep k 
 there. We released ourselves from the machine 
 in a twinkling; and our first impulse was to fall 
 on our knees, and return thanks for our safe deli- 
 verance from the many perils of the voyage. 
 
9! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Some account of Morosqfia, and its chief city, 
 Alamatua — Singular dresses of the Lunar la- 
 dies Religious self-denial — -Glonglim miser 
 
 and spendthrift. 
 
 My feelings, at the moment I touched the 
 ground, repayed me for all I had endured. I 
 looked around with the most intense curiosity ; 
 but nothing that I saw, surprised me so much as 
 to find so little that was surprising. The vegeta- 
 tion, insects and other animals, were all pretty 
 much of the same character as those I had seen 
 before; but after I became better acquainted with 
 them, I found the difference to be much greater 
 than I at first supposed. Having refreshed our- 
 selves with the remains of our stores, and secured 
 the door of our machine, we bent our course, by 
 a plain road, towards the town we saw on the 
 side of a mountain, about three miles distant, and 
 entered it a little before the sun had descended 
 behind the adjacent mountain. 
 
 The town of Alamatua seemed to contain 
 about two thousand houses, and to be not quite as 
 
92 
 
 large as Albany. The houses were built of a soft 
 shining stone, and they all had porticoes, piazzas, 
 and verandas, suited to the tropical climate of 
 Morosofia. The people were tall and thin, of a 
 pale yellowish complexion ; and their garments 
 light, loose, and flowing, and not very different 
 from those of the Turks. The lower order of peo- 
 ple commonly wore but a single garment, which 
 passed round the waist. One half the houses were 
 under ground, partly to screen them from the 
 continued action of the sun's rays, and partly on 
 account of the earthquakes caused by volcanoes. 
 The windows of their houses were different from 
 any I had ever seen before. They consisted of 
 openings in the wall, sloping so much upwards, 
 that while they freely admitted the light and air, 
 the sun was completely excluded: and although 
 those who were within could readily see what was 
 passing in the streets, they were concealed from 
 the gaze of the curious. In their hot-houses, it 
 was common to have mirrors in the ceilings, 
 which at once reflected the street passengers to 
 those who were on the floor, and enabled the 
 ostentatious to display to the public eye the 
 decorations of their tables, whenever they gave a 
 sumptuous feast. 
 The inhabitants subsist chiefly on a vegetable 
 
93 
 
 diet ; live about as long as they do on the earth, 
 notwithstanding the great difference of climate, 
 and other circumstances ; and, in short, do not, 
 in their manners, habits, or character, differ more 
 from the inhabitants of our planet, than some of 
 these differ from one another. Their government 
 was anciently monarchical, but is now popular. 
 Their code of laws is said to be very intricate. 
 Their language, naturally soft and musical, has 
 been yet further refined by the cultivation of let- 
 ters. They have a variety of sects in religion, 
 politics, and philosophy. The territory of Moro- 
 sofia is about 150 miles square. This brief sketch 
 must content the reader for the present. I refer 
 those who are desirous of being more particularly 
 informed, to the work which I propose to publish 
 on lunar geography ; and, in the mean time, some 
 of the most striking peculiarities of this people, in 
 opinions, manners, and customs, will be developed 
 in this, which must be considered as my personal 
 , narrative. 
 
 As soon as we were espied by the inhabitants, 
 we were surrounded by a troop of little boys, as 
 well as all the idle and inquisitive near us. The 
 Brahmin had not gone far, before he was met by 
 some persons of his acquaintance, who imme- 
 diately recognised him, and seemed very much 
 
94 
 
 pleased to see him again in the moon. They po- 
 litely conducted us to the house of the governor, 
 who received us very graciously. He appeared to 
 be about forty-five years of age, was dressed in a 
 pearl-coloured suit, and had a mild, amiable de- 
 portment. He began a course of interesting inqui- 
 ry about the affairs of the earth ; but a gentleman, 
 whom we afterwards understood was one of the 
 leaders of the popular party, coming in, he soon 
 despatched us ; having, however, first directed an 
 officer to furnish us with all that was necessary 
 for our accommodation, at the public expense — 
 which act of hospitality, we have reason to fear, 
 occasioned him some trouble and perplexity at 
 the succeeding election. We very gladly with- 
 drew, as both by reason of our long walk, and the 
 excitement produced by so many new objects, we 
 were greatly fatigued. The officer conducted us 
 to respectable private lodgings, in a lightsome 
 situation, which overlooked ihc chief part of the 
 city. 
 
 After a frugal, but not unpalatable repast, and 
 a few hours 1 sleep, the Brahmin took me round 
 the city and a part of its environs, to make me 
 acquainted with the public buildings, streets, 
 shops, and the appearance of the inhabitants. I 
 Boon found that our arrival was generally known, 
 
95 
 
 and that we excited quite as much curiosity as 
 we felt, though many of the persons we met had 
 seen the Brahmin before. I was surprised that we 
 saw none of their women ; but the Brahmin told 
 me that they were every where gazing through 
 their windows ; nnd, on looking up, through these 
 slanting apertures I could often see their eyes 
 peeping over the upper edge of the window-sill. 
 
 I shall now proceed to record faithfully what I 
 deem most memorable ; not as many travellers 
 have done, from their recollection, after their 
 return home, but from notes, which I regularly 
 made, either at the moment of observation, or 
 very shortly afterwards. When we first visited 
 the shops, I was equally gratified and surprised 
 with what was familiar and what was new ; but I 
 was particularly amused with those of the tailors 
 and milliners. In the lower part of their dress, 
 the Lunarians chiefly resemble the Europeans ; 
 but in the upper part, the Asiatics — for they shave 
 the head, and wear turbans ; from which fact the 
 Brahmin drew another argument in favour of the 
 hypothesis, that the moon was originally a part of 
 the earth. Some of the female fashions were so 
 extremely singular and fanciful, as to deserve 
 particular mention. 
 
 One piece of their attire was formed of a long 
 
9G 
 
 piece of light stiff wood, covered with silk, and de- 
 corated with showy ornaments. It was worn across 
 the shoulders, beyond each of which it jutted out 
 about half a yard ; and from either end a cord led 
 to a ring running round the upper part of the 
 head, bearing no small resemblance to the yard of 
 a ship's mast, and the ropes used for steering it. 
 Several other dresses I saw, which I am satisfied 
 would be highly disapproved by my modest coun- 
 trywomen. Thus, in some were inserted glasses 
 like watch crystals, adapted to the form and 
 size of the female bosom. But, to do the Lunar 
 ladies justice, I understood that these dresses 
 were condemned by the sedate part of the sex, 
 and were worn only by the young and thought- 
 less, who were vain of their forms. I observed 
 too, that instead of decorating their heads with 
 flowers, like the ladies of our earth, they taxed 
 the animal world for a correspondent ornament. 
 Many of the head-dresses were made of a stiff 
 open gauze, occasionally stuck over with insects 
 of the butterfly and coccinella species, and others 
 of the gayest hues. At other times these insects 
 were alive ; when their perpetual buzzing and 
 fluttering in their transparent cages, had a very 
 animating effect. One decoration for the head in 
 particular struck my fancy : it was formed of a 
 
97 
 
 silver tissue, containing fireflies, and intended to 
 be worn in the night. 
 
 But the most remarkable thing of all, was the 
 whim of the ladies in the upper classes, of making 
 themselves as much like birds as possible ; in 
 which art, it must be confessed, they were won- 
 derfully successful. The dress used for this pur- 
 pose, consisted of a sort of thick cloak, covered 
 with feathers, like those of the South Sea islands, 
 and was so fashioned, by means of a tight thick 
 quilting, as to make the wearer, at a little dis- 
 tance, very much resemble an overgrown bird, ex- 
 cept that the legs were somewhat too thick. Their 
 arms were concealed under the wings ; and the 
 resemblance was yet further increased, by marks 
 with beaks adapted to the particular plumage: 
 some personating doves, some magpies ; others 
 again, hawks, parrots, <fcc, according to their na- 
 tural figure, humour, &c. ; while the deception 
 was still further assisted by their extraordinary 
 agility, compared with ours, by means of which 
 they could, with ease, hop eighteen or twenty 
 feet. I told the Brahmin that some of the Indians 
 of our continent showed a similar taste in dress, 
 by decorating themselves with horns like the buf- 
 falo, and with tails like horses; which furnished 
 9 
 
98 
 
 him with a further argument in favour of a com- 
 mon origin. 
 
 We spent above an hour in examining these 
 curious habiliments, and in inquiring the purposes 
 and uses of the several parts. Sometimes I was 
 induced, through the Brahmin, to criticise thejr 
 taste and skill, having been always an admirer 
 of simplicity in female attire. But I remarked 
 on this occasion, as on several others, subse- 
 quently, that the people of the moon were neither 
 very thankful for advice, nor thought very highly 
 of the judgment of those who differ from them 
 in opinion. 
 
 After having rambled over the city about six 
 hours, our appetites told us it was time to return 
 to our lodgings; and here I met with a new cause 
 of wonder. The family wiili whom we were do- 
 mesticated, belonged to a numerous and zealous 
 sect of religionists, and were, in their way, very 
 worthy, as well as pious people. Their dinner 
 consisted of several dishes of vegetables, variously 
 served up ; of roots, stalks, seeds, flowers, and 
 fruits, some of which resembled the productions 
 of the earth ; and in particular, I saw a dish of 
 what I at first took to be very fine asparagus, but 
 supposed I was mistaken, when I saw them eat 
 the coarse fibrous part alone. On tasting it, how- 
 
99 
 
 ever, in the ordinary way, 1 found it to be genu- 
 ine, good asparagus ; but I perceived that the 
 family looked extremely shocked at my taste. Af- 
 ter the other dishes were removed, some large 
 fruit, of the peach kind, were set on the table, 
 when the members of the family, having carefully 
 paired off the skin, ate it, and threw the rest away. 
 They in like manner chewed the shells of some 
 small grayish nuts, and threw away the kernels, 
 which to me were very palatable. The younger 
 children, consisting of two boys and a girl, ex- 
 changed looks with each other at the selections I 
 made, and I thought I perceived in the looks of 
 the mother, still more aversion than surprise. I 
 found too, that my friend the Brahmin abstained 
 from all these things, and partook only of those 
 vegetables and fruits of which both they and I ate 
 alike. Some wine was offered us, which appeared 
 to me to be neither more nor less than vinegar ; 
 and, what added to my surprise, a bottle, which 
 they said was not yet fit to drink, seemed to me 
 to be pretty good, the Brahmin having passed it 
 to me for my judgment, as soon as they pronoun- 
 ced upon it sentence of condemnation. 
 
 After we arose from this strange scene, and had 
 withdrawn to our chamber, I expressed my sur- 
 prise to my companion at this contrariety in the 
 
100 
 
 tastes of the Terrestrials and Lunarians : where- 
 upon he told me, that the difference was rather 
 apparent than real. 
 
 " These people, 11 said he, " belong to a sect of 
 Ascetics in this country, who are persuaded that 
 all pleasure received through the senses is sinful, 
 and that man never appears so acceptable in the 
 sight of the Deity, as when he rejects all the deli- 
 cacies of the palate, as well as other sensual gra- 
 tifications, and imposes on himself that food to 
 which he feels naturally most repugnant. You 
 may see that those peaches, which were so dis- 
 dainfully thrown into the yard, are often secretly 
 picked up by the children, who obey the impulses 
 of nature, and devour them most greedily. Even 
 in the old people themselves, there is occasionally 
 some backsliding into the depravity of worldly 
 appetite. You might have perceived, that while 
 the old man was abusing the wine you drank as 
 unripe, and making wry faces at it, he still kept 
 tasting it ; and if I had not reached it to you, he 
 would probably, before he had ceased his medita- 
 tions, have finished half the bottle. It must be 
 confessed, that although religion cherishes our 
 best feelings, it also often proves a cloak for the 
 worst. 11 
 
 I told him that our clergy were superior to this 
 
101 
 
 weakness, most of them manifesting a proper 
 sense of the bounty of Providence, by eating and 
 drinking of the best, (not very sparingly neither); 
 and that in New-York, we considered some of our 
 preachers the best judges of wine among us. Soon 
 afterwards, we again sallied forth in quest of ad- 
 ventures, and bent our course towards the suburbs. 
 
 We had not gone far, before we saw several 
 persons looking at a man working hard at a forge, 
 in a low crazy building. On approaching him, we 
 found he was engaged in making nails, an opera- 
 tion which he performed with great skill and 
 adroitness ; and as soon as he had made as many 
 as he could take up in his hand at once, he car- 
 ried them behind his little hovel, and dropped 
 them into a narrow deep well. Some of the by- 
 standers wished to beg a few of what he seemed 
 to value so lightly, and others offered to give him 
 bread or clothes in exchange for his nails, but he 
 obstinately resisted all their applications; in fact, 
 little heeding them, although he was almost na- 
 ked, had a starved, haggard appearance, and evi- 
 dently regarded the food they proffered with a 
 wishful eye. 
 
 The lookers on told us the blacksmith had been 
 for years engaged in this business of nail-making ; 
 that he worked with little intermission, scarcely 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 allowing himself time for necessary sleep or re- 
 freshment ; that all the fruits of his incessant 
 labour were disposed of in the manner we had 
 just seen ; and that he had already three wells 
 filled with nails, which he had carefully closed. 
 He had, moreover, a large and productive farm, 
 the increase arising from which, was laid out in 
 exchange for the metal of which his nails were 
 made. He had, we were informed, so much at- 
 tachment to these pieces of metal, that he was 
 often on the point of starvation before he would 
 part with one. 
 
 I observed to the Brahmin, that it was a singu- 
 lar, and somewhat inexplicable, species of mad- 
 ness. 
 
 " True,' 1 he replied ; " this man's conduct can- 
 not be explained upon any rational principles — 
 but he is one of the Glonglims, of which I have 
 spoken to you ; and examples are not wanting on 
 our planet, of conduct as irreconcilable to reason. 
 This man is making an article which is scarce, as 
 well as useful, in this country, where gravity is 
 less than it is with us: the force of the wind is 
 very great, and the metal is possessed but by a 
 few. Now, if you suppose these nails to be pieces 
 of gold and silver, his conduct will be precisely 
 that of some of our misers, who waste their days 
 
103 
 
 and nights in hoarding up wealth which they 
 never use, nor mean to use ; but, denying them- 
 selves every comfort oflife, anxiously and unceas- 
 ingly toil for those who are to come after them, 
 though they are so far from feeling, towards these 
 successors, any peculiar affection, that they often 
 regard them with jealousy and hatred. 1 ' 
 
 While we thus conversed, there stepped up to us 
 a handsome man, foppishly dressed in blue trow- 
 sers, a pink vest, and a red and white turban ; 
 who, after having shaken my companion by the 
 ears, according to the custom of the country 
 among intimate friends, expressed his delight at 
 seeing him again in Morosofia. He then went on, 
 in a lively, humorous strain, to ridicule the nail- 
 smith, and told us several stories of his singular 
 attachment to his nails. In the midst of these sal- 
 lies, however, a harsh looking personage in brown 
 came up, upon which the countenance of our 
 lively acquaintance suddenly changed, and they 
 walked off together. 
 
 " I apprehend,' 1 said the Brahmin, " that my 
 gay acquaintance yonder continues as he formerly 
 was. The man in brown, who so unseasonably 
 interrupted his pleasantry, is an officer of justice, 
 and has probably taken him before a magistrate, 
 to answer some one of his numerous creditors. 
 
104 
 
 You must know," added he, " that the people of 
 the moon, however irrational themselves, are very 
 prompt in perceiving the absurdities of others : 
 and this lively wit, who, as you see, wants neither 
 parts nor address, acts as strangely as the wretch 
 he has been ridiculing. He inherited a large 
 estate, which brought him in a princely revenue ; 
 and yet his desires and expenses so far outgo his 
 means, that he is always in want. Both he and 
 the nailmaker sutler the evils of poverty — of po- 
 verty created by themselves — which, moreover, 
 they can terminate when they please ; but they 
 must reach the same point by directly opposite 
 roads. The blacksmith will allow himself nothing 
 — the beau will deny himself nothing : the one is 
 a slave to pleasure — the other, the victim of fear. 
 I told you that there were but few whose estates 
 produced the metal of which these nails arc made; 
 and this thoughtless youth happens to be one. A 
 few years since, he wanted some of the black- 
 smith's nails to purchase the first rose of the sea- 
 son, and pledged his mines to pay, at the end of 
 the year, three times the amount he received in 
 exchange ; and although, if he were to use but 
 half his income for a single year, the other half 
 would discharge his debts. I apprehend, from 
 what I have heard, that he has, from that time to 
 
105 
 
 this, continued to pay the same exorbitant inter- 
 est. When I was here before, I prevailed on him 
 to take a ride with me into the country, and, un- 
 der one pretext or another, detained him ten days 
 at a friend's house, where he had no inducement 
 to expense. When he returned, he found his debts 
 paid off; but knowing he was master of so ready 
 and effectual an expedient, he, the next day, bor- 
 rowed double the sum at the old rate. Since that 
 time his debts have accumulated so rapidly, that 
 he will probably now be compelled to surrender 
 his whole estate." 
 
 "Is he also a Glonglim ?" I asked. 
 
 " Assuredly : what man, in his entire senses, 
 could act so irrationally ?" 
 
 " There is nothing on earth that exceeds this," 
 said I. 
 
 " No," said the Brahmin ; " human folly is 
 every where the same." 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Physical peculiarities of the Moon — Celestial phe- 
 nomena — Further description of the Lunarians 
 — National prejudice — Lightness of bodies — 
 The Brahmin carries Atterleij to sup with a 
 philosopher — His character and opinions. 
 
 After we had been in the moon about forty 
 eight hours, the sun had sunk below the horizon, 
 and the long twilight of the Lunarians had begun. 
 I will here take occasion to notice the physical 
 peculiarities of this country, which, though very 
 familiar to those who are versed in astronomy, 
 may not be unacceptable to the less scientific 
 portion of my readers. 
 
 The sun is above the horizon nearly a fortnight, 
 and below it as long ; of course the day here is 
 equal to about twenty-seven of ours. The earth 
 answers the same purpose to half the inhabitants 
 of the moon, that the moon does to the inhabi- 
 tants of the earth. The face of the latter, how- 
 ever, is more than twelve times as large, and it 
 has not the same silvery appearance as the moon, 
 but is rather of a dingy pink hue, like that of hot 
 
107 
 
 iron when beginning to lose its red heat. As the 
 same part of the moon is always turned to the 
 earth, one half of her surface is perpetually illu- 
 minated by a moon ten times as large to the eye 
 as the sun ; the other hemisphere is without a 
 moon. The favoured part, therefore, never expe- 
 riences total darkness, the earth reflecting to the 
 Lunarians as much light as we terrestrials have 
 a little before sunrise, or after sunset. But our 
 planet presents to the Lunarians the same changes 
 as the moon does to us, according to its position 
 in relation to the sun. It always, however, ap- 
 pears to occupy nearly the same part of the hea- 
 vens, when seen from the same point on the 
 moon's surface ; but its altitude above the hori- 
 zon is greater or less, according to the latitude of 
 the place from which it is seen : so that there is 
 not a point of the heavens which the earth may 
 not be seen permanently to occupy, according to 
 the part of the moon from which the planet is 
 viewed. 
 
 From the length of time that the sun is above 
 the horizon, the continued action of his rays, in 
 those climates where they fall vertically, or nearly 
 so, would be intolerable, if it was not for the high 
 mountains, from whose snow-clad summits a per- 
 petual breeze derives a refreshing coolness, and 
 
108 
 
 for the deep glens and recesses, in which most 
 animals seek protection from his meridian beams. 
 The transitions from heat to cold are less than 
 one would expect, from the length of their days 
 and nights— the coolness of the one, as well as 
 the heat of the other, being tempered by a con- 
 stant east wind. The climate gradually becomes 
 colder as we approach the Poles ; but there is 
 little or no change of seasons in the same latitude. 
 
 The inhabitants of the moon have not the same 
 regularity in their meals, or time for sleep, as we 
 have, but consult their appetites and inclinations 
 like other animals. But they make amends for 
 this irregularity, by a very strict and punctilious 
 observance of festivals, which are regulated by the 
 motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting 
 they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those 
 which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, 
 like the hopes which the approach of that benig- 
 nant luminary inspires. The others are of a grave 
 and sober character, as if to prepare the mind for 
 serious contemplation in their long-enduring night. 
 When the earth is at the full, which is their mid- 
 night, it is also a season of great festivity with 
 them. 
 
 Eclipses of the suti are as common with the 
 Lunarians as those of the moon are with us — the 
 
109 
 
 same relative position of the three bodies produ- 
 cing this phenomenon; but an eclipse of the 
 earth never takes place, as the shadow of the 
 moon passes over the broad disc of our planet, 
 merely as a dark spot. 
 
 The inhabitants of the moon can always deter- 
 mine both their latitude and longitude, by observ- 
 ing the quarter of the heavens in which the earth 
 is seen : and, as the sun invariably appears of the 
 same altitude at their noon, the inhabitants are 
 denominated and classed according to the length 
 of their shadows ; and the terms long shadow, or 
 short shadow, are common forms of national re- 
 proach among them, according to the relative 
 position of the parties. I found the climate of 
 those whose shadows are about the length of their 
 own figure, the most agreeably to my own feel- 
 ings, and most like that of my own country. 
 
 Such are the most striking natural appearances 
 on one side of this satellite. On the other there is 
 some difference. The sun pursues the same path 
 in the corresponding latitudes of both hemi- 
 spheres ; but being without any moon, they have 
 a dull and dreary night, though the light from the 
 stars is much greater than with us. The science 
 of astronomy is much cultivated by the inhabi- 
 10 
 
110 
 
 tants of the dark hemisphere, and is indebted to 
 them for its most important discoveries, and its 
 present high state of improvement. 
 
 If there is much rivalship among the natives of 
 the same hemisphere, who differ in the length of 
 their shadows, they all unite in hatred and con- 
 tempt for the inhabitants of the opposite side. 
 Those who have the benefit of a moon, that is, 
 who are turned towards the earth, are lively, indo- 
 lent, and changeable as the face of the luminary 
 on which they pride themselves ; while those on 
 the other side are more grave, sedate, and indus- 
 trious. The first are called the Hilliboos, and the 
 last the Moriboos — or bright nights, and dark 
 nights. And this mutual animosity is the more 
 remarkable, as they often appeared to me to be 
 the same race, and to differ much less from one 
 another than the natives of different climates. It 
 is true, that enlightened and well educated men 
 do not seem to feel this prejudice, or at least they 
 do not show it : but those who travel from one 
 hemisphere to the other, are sure to encounter the 
 prejudices of the vulgar, and are often treated 
 with great contempt and indignity. They are 
 pointed at by the children, who, according as they 
 chance to have been bred on one side or the other, 
 say, " There goes a man who never saw Gloon- 
 
Ill 
 
 tin," as they call the earth ; or, " There goes a 
 Booblimak," which means a night stroller. 
 
 All bodies are much lighter on the moon than 
 on the earth ; by reason of which circumstance, 
 as has been mentioned, the inhabitants are more 
 active, and experience much less fatigue in 
 ascending their precipitous mountains. I was 
 astonished at first at this seeming increase in my 
 muscular powers; when, on passing along a street 
 in Alamatua, soon after my arrival, and meeting 
 a dog, which I thought to be mad, I proposed to 
 run out of his way, and in leaping over a gutter, 
 I fairly bounded across the street. I measured 
 the distance the next day, and found it to be 
 twenty-seven feet five inches; and afterwards fre- 
 quently saw the school-boys, when engaged in 
 athletic exercises, make running leaps of between 
 thirty and forty feet, backwards and forwards. 
 Another consequence of the diminished gravity 
 here is, that both men and animals carry much 
 greater burdens than on the earth. 
 
 The carriages are drawn altogether by dogs, 
 which are the largest animals they have, except 
 the zebra, and a small buffalo. This diminution 
 of gravity is, however, of some disadvantage to 
 them. Many of their tools are not as efficient as 
 ours, especially their axes, hoes, and hammers. 
 
112 
 
 On the other hand, when a person falls to the 
 ground, it is nearly the same thing as if an inha- 
 bitant of the earth were to fall on a feather bed. 
 Yet I saw as many instances of fractured limbs, 
 hernia, and other accidents there, as I ever saw 
 on the earth ; for when they fall from great 
 heights, or miscarry in the feats of activity which 
 they ambitiously attempt, it inflicts the same in- 
 jury upon them, as a fall nearer the ground does 
 upon us. 
 
 After we had been here sufficiently long to see 
 what was most remarkable in the city, and I had 
 committed the fruit of my observations to paper, 
 the Brahmin proposed to carry me to one of the 
 monthly suppers of a philosopher whom he knew, 
 and who had obtained great celebrity by his wri- 
 tings and opinions. 
 
 We accordingly went, and found him sitting at 
 a small table, and apparently exhausted with 
 the labour of composition, and the ardour of in- 
 tense thought. He wns a small man, of quick, 
 abrupt manners, occasionally very abstracted, 
 but more frequently voluble, earnest, and disputa- 
 tious. He frankly told us he was sorry to see us, 
 as he was then putting the last finish to a great 
 and useful work he was about to publish : that we 
 had thus unseasonably broken the current of his 
 
113 
 
 thoughts, and he might not be able to revive it for 
 some days. Upon my rising to take my leave, he 
 assured me that it would be adding to the injury 
 already done, if we then quitted him. He said he 
 wished to learn the particulars of our voyage ; 
 and that he, in turn, should certainly render us 
 service, by disclosing some of the results of his 
 own reflections. He further remarked, that he 
 expected six or eight friends — that is, (correcting 
 himself,) " enlightened and congenial minds," to 
 supper, on the rising of a constellation he named, 
 which time, he remarked, would soon arrive. 
 Finding his frankness to be thus seasoned with 
 hospitality, we resumed our seats. It soon ap- 
 peared that he was more disposed to communi- 
 cate information than to seek it; and I became a 
 patient listener. If the boldness and strangeness 
 of his opinions occasionally startled me, I could 
 not but admire the clearness with which he stated 
 his propositions, the fervour of his elocution, and 
 the plausibility of his arguments. 
 
 The expected guests at length arrived ; and 
 various questions of morals and legislation were 
 started, in which the disputants seemed some- 
 times as if they would have laid aside the charac- 
 ter of philosophers, but for the seasonable inter- 
 position of the Brahmin. Wigurd, our host, often 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 laboured with his accustomed zeal, to prove that 
 every one who opposed him, was either a fool, or 
 biassed by some petty interest, or the dupe of 
 blind prejudice. 
 
 After about two hours of warm, and, as it seem- 
 ed to me, unprofitable discussion, we were sum- 
 moned to our repast in the adjoining room. But 
 before we rose from our seats, our host requested 
 to know of each of us if we were hungry ; and, 
 whether it were from modesty, perverseness, or 
 really because they had no appetite, I know not, 
 but a majority of the company, in which I was 
 included, voted that their hour of eating was not 
 yet come : upon which Wigurd remarked that 
 his own vote, as being at home, and the Brah- 
 min's, as being at once a philosopher and a stran- 
 ger, should each count for two ; and by this mode 
 of reckoning there was a casting vote in favour of 
 going to supper. 
 
 We found the table covered with tempting 
 dishes, served up in a costly and tasteful style, 
 and a sprightly, well-looking female prepared to 
 do the honours of the feast. She reproved our 
 host for his delay, and told him the best dish was 
 spoiled, by being cold. I was fearful of a discus- 
 sion ; but he sat down without making a reply, 
 and immediately addressing the company, des- 
 
115 
 
 canted on the various qualities of food, and their 
 several adaptations to different ages, constitu- 
 tions, and temperaments. He condemned the 
 absurd practice which prevailed, for the master or 
 mistress of the house to lavish entreaties on their 
 guests to eat that which they might be better 
 without ; and insisted, at the same time, that the 
 guests ought not to consult their own tastes exclu- 
 sively. He maintained, that the only course wor- 
 thy of rational and benevolent beings, was for 
 every man to judge for his neighbour as well as 
 for himself; and, should any collision arise be- 
 tween the different claimants, then, if any one 
 were guided by that decision, which an honest 
 and unbiassed judgment would tell him was right, 
 they would all come to the same just and harmo- 
 nious result. 
 
 " But," added he, " you have not yet been suffi- 
 ciently prepared for this disinterested operation. 
 As ye have proved this night that ye are not yet 
 purged of the feelings and prejudices of a vicious 
 education, I will perform this office for you all, 
 and set you an example, by which ye may here- 
 after profit. To begin, then, with you — (address- 
 ing himself to a corpulent man, of a florid com- 
 plexion, at the lower end of the table :) — As you 
 already have a redundancy of flesh and blood, I 
 
11G 
 
 assign the soupe maigre to you ; while to our ma- 
 thematical friend on this side, whose delicate con- 
 stitution requires nourishment, I recommend the 
 smoking ragout. This cooling dish will suit your 
 temperament, 11 said he to a third ; " and this sti- 
 mulating one, yours, 1 ' to a fourth. " Those little 
 birds, which cost me five pieces, I shall divide 
 between my terrestrial friend here (looking at the 
 Brahmin) and myself, we being the most merito- 
 rious of the company, and it being of the utmost 
 importance to society, that food so wholesome 
 should give nourishment to our bodies, and impart 
 vigour and vivacity to our minds. 11 
 
 From this decision there was no appeal, and no 
 other dissent than what was expressed by a look 
 or a low murmur. But I perceived the corpulent 
 gentleman and the wan mathematician slily ex- 
 change their dishes, by which they both seemed 
 to consider themselves gainers. The dish allot- 
 ted to me, being of a middling character, I ate of 
 it without repining ; though, from the savoury 
 fumes of my right-hand neighbour's plate, I could 
 not help wishing I had been allowed to choose 
 for myself. 
 
 This supper happening near the middle of the 
 night, (at which time it was always pretty cool,) 
 a cheerful fire blazed in one side of the room, and 
 
117 
 
 I perceived that our host and hostess placed them- 
 selves so as to be at the most agreeable distance, 
 the greater part of the guests being either too 
 near or too far from it. 
 
 After we had finished our repast, various sub- 
 jects of speculation were again introduced and 
 discussed, greatly to my amusement. Wigurd dis- 
 played his usual ingenuity and ardour, and baffled 
 all his antagonists by his vehemence and fluency. 
 He had two great principles by which he tested 
 the good or evil of every thing ; and there were 
 few questions in which he could not avail himself 
 of one or the other. These were, general utility 
 and truth. 
 
 By a skilful use of these weapons of contro- 
 versy, he could attack or defend with equal suc- 
 cess. If any custom or institution which he had 
 denounced, was justified by his adversaries, on 
 the ground of its expediency, he immediately re- 
 torted on them its repugnancy to sincerity, truth, 
 and unsophisticated nature ; and if they, at any 
 time, resorted to a similar justification for our 
 natural feelings and propensities, he triumphantly 
 showed that they were inimical to the public good. 
 Thus, he condemned gratitude as a sentiment 
 calculated to weaken the sense of justice, and to 
 substitute feeling for reason. He, on the other 
 
118 
 
 hand, proscribed the little forms and courtesies,, 
 which are either founded in convenience, or give 
 a grace and sweetness to social intercourse, as a 
 direct violation of honest nature, and therefore 
 odious and mean. He thus was able to silence 
 every opponent. I was very desirous of hearing 
 the Brahmin's opinion ; but, while he evidently 
 was not convinced by our host's language, he 
 declined engaging in any controversy. 
 
 After we retired, my friend. told me that Wigurd 
 was a good man in the main, though he had been 
 as much hated by some as if his conduct had been 
 immoral, instead of his opinions merely being sin- 
 gular. " He not long ago," added the Brahmin, 
 " wrote a book against marriage, and soon after- 
 wards wedded, in due form, the lady you saw at 
 his table. She holds as strange tenets as he, 
 which she supports with as much zeal, and almost 
 as much ability. But I predict that the popula- 
 rity of their doctrines will not last ; and if ever 
 you visit the moon again, you will find that their 
 glory, now at its height, like the ephemeral fash- 
 ions of the earth, will have passed away." 
 
119 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A celebrated physician : his ingenious theories in 
 physics: his mechanical inventions — The fea- 
 ther-hunting Glonglim. 
 
 On returning to our lodgings, we, acting under 
 the influence of long habit, went to bed, though 
 half the family were up, and engaged in their or- 
 dinary employments. One consequence of the 
 length of the days and nights here is, that every 
 household is commonly divided into two parts, 
 which watch and sleep by turns : nor have they 
 any uniformity in their meals, except in particu- 
 lar families, which are regulated by clocks and 
 time-pieces. The vulgar have no means of mea- 
 suring smaller portions of time than a day or 
 night, (each equal to a fortnight with us,) except 
 by observing the apparent motion of the sun or 
 the stars, in which, considering that it is nearly 
 thirty times as slow as with us, they attain sur- 
 prising accuracy. They have the same short in- 
 tervals of labour and rest in their long night as 
 their day — the light reflected from the earth, be- 
 ing commonly sufficient to enable them to per- 
 
120 
 
 form almost any operation ; and, ere our planet is 
 in her second quarter, one may read the smallest 
 print by her light. 
 
 To compensate their want of this natural ad- 
 vantage, the inhabitants of Moriboozia are abun- 
 dantly supplied with a petroleum, or bituminous 
 liquid, which is found every where about their 
 lakes, or on their mountains, and which they burn 
 in lamps, of various sizes, shapes, and construc- 
 tions. They have also numerous volcanoes, each 
 of which sheds a strong light for many miles 
 around. 
 
 We slept unusually long ; and, owing in part to 
 Wigurd's good cheer, I awoke with a head-ache. 
 I got up to take a long walk, which often relieves 
 , me when suffering from that malady; and, on 
 ascending the stairs, I met our landlord's eldest 
 daughter, a tall, graceful girl of twenty. I found 
 she was coming down backwards, which I took 
 to be a mere girlish freak, or perhaps a piece of 
 coquetry, practised on myself: but I afterwards 
 found, that about the time the earth is at the full, 
 the whole family pursued the same course, and 
 were very scrupulous in making their steps in this 
 awkward and inconvenient way, because it was 
 one of the prescribed forms of their church. 
 As my head-ache became rather worse, than 
 
121 
 
 better, from my walk, the Brahmin proposed to 
 accompany me to the house of a celebrated physi- 
 cian, called Vindar, who was also a botanist, che- 
 mist, and dentist, to consult him on my case ; and 
 thither we forthwith proceeded. I found him a 
 large, unwieldy figure, of a dull, heavy look, but 
 by no means deficient in science or natural 
 shrewdness. He confirmed my previous impres- 
 sion that I ought to lose blood, and plausibly 
 enough accounted for my present sensation of ful- 
 ness, from the inferior pressure of the lunar atmo- 
 sphere to that which I had been accustomed. He 
 proposed, however, to return to my veins a por- 
 tion of thinner blood in place of what he should 
 take away, and offered me the choice of several 
 animals, which he always kept by him for that 
 purpose. There were two white animals of the 
 hog kind, a male and a female lama, three goats, 
 besides several birds, about the size of a turkey, 
 some tortoises, and other amphibious animals. 
 He professed himself willing, in case I had any 
 foolish scruples against mixing my blood with that 
 of brutes, to purify my own, and put it back; but I 
 obstinately declined both expedients; whereupon 
 he opened a vein in my arm, and took from it 
 about fourteen ounces of blood. Finding myself 
 weakened, as well as relieved, by the operation 
 11 
 
122 
 
 lie invited me to rest myself; and while I was reco- 
 vering my strength, he discoursed with the Brah- 
 min and myself on several of his favourite topics. 
 On returning home, I committed to paper some of 
 the most remarkable of his opinions, which it may 
 be as well to notice, that those who have since 
 propounded, or may hereafter propound, the same 
 to the world, may not claim the merit of origi- 
 nality. 
 
 He maintained that the number of our senses 
 was greater than that commonly assigned to us. 
 That we had, for example, a sense of acids, of 
 alkalies, of weight, and of heat. That acid sub- 
 stances acted upon our bodies by a peculiar set 
 of nerves, or through some medium of their own, 
 was evident from this, that they set the teeth on 
 edge, though these, from their hard and bony 
 nature, are insensible to the touch. That astrin- 
 gents shrivelled up the flesh and puckered the 
 mouth, even when their taste was not perceived. 
 That when the skin shrunk on the application of 
 vinegar, could it be said that it had not a peculiar 
 sense of this liquid, or rather of its acidity, since 
 the existence of the senses was known only by 
 effects which external matter produced on them ? 
 That the senses, like that of touch, were seated in 
 most parts of the body, but were most acute in 
 
123 
 
 the mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. He showed some 
 disposition to maintain the popular notions of the 
 Greeks and Romans, that the rivers and streams 
 are endowed with reason and volition ; and en- 
 deavoured to prove that some of their windings 
 and deviations from a straight line, cannot be 
 explained upon mechanical principles. 
 
 Vindar is, moreover, a projector of a very bold 
 character ; nnd not long ago petitioned the com- 
 manding general of an army, suddenly raised to 
 repel an incursion of one of their neighbours, to 
 march his troops into Goolo-Tongtoia, for the 
 purpose of digging a canal from one of their pe- 
 troleum lakes into Morosofia, and conducting it, 
 by smaller streams, over that country, for the pur- 
 pose of warming it during their long cool nights. 
 
 He has, too, a large grist and saw mill, which 
 are put in motion by the explosion of gunpowder. 
 This is conveyed, by a sufficiently ingenious ma- 
 chine, in very small portions, to the bottom of an 
 upright cylinder, which is immediately shut per- 
 fectly close. A flint and steel are at the same 
 time made to strike directly over it, and to ignite 
 the powder. The air that is thus generated, forces 
 up a piston through a cylinder, which piston, stri- 
 king the arm of a wheel, puts it in motion, and 
 with it the machinery of the mills. A complete 
 
124 
 
 revolution of the wheel again prepares the cylin- 
 der for a fresh supply of gunpowder, which is set 
 on fire, and produces the same effect as before. 
 
 He told me he had been fifteen years perfecting 
 this great work, in which time it had been twice 
 blown up by accidents, arising from the careless- 
 ness or mismanagement of the workmen; but 
 that he now expected it would repay him for the 
 time and money he had pvpondod. He had once, 
 he said, intended to use the expansive force of 
 congelation for his moving power ; but he found, 
 after making a full and accurate calculation, that 
 the labourers required to keep the machine sup- 
 plied with ice, consumed something more than 
 twice as much corn as the mill would grind in the 
 same time. He then was about to move it to a 
 fine stream of water in the neighbourhood, which, 
 by being dammed up, so as to form a large pond, 
 would afford him a convenient and inexhaustible 
 supply of ice. But the millwright, after the dam 
 was completed, having artfully obtained his per- 
 mission to use the waste water, and fraudulently 
 erected there a common water-mill, which soon 
 obtained all the neighbouring custom, he had sold 
 out that property, and resorted to the agency of 
 gunpowder, which is quite as philosophical a pro- 
 cess as that of congelation, and much less expen- 
 
125 
 
 sive. In answer to an inquiry of the Brahmin's, 
 he admitted, that though he had been able, by the 
 force of congelation, to burst metallic tubes seve- 
 ral inches thick, he had never succeeded in ma- 
 king it put the lightest machinery into a continued 
 motion. 
 
 Having now nearly recovered, and being, I 
 confess, somewhat bewildered by the variety and 
 complexity of these ingenious projects, I felt dis- 
 posed to take my leave ; but Vindar insisted on 
 conducting us into an inner apartment, to see his 
 jioctry box. This was a large piece of furniture, 
 profusely decorated with metals of various co- 
 lours, curiously and fantastically inlaid. It con- 
 tained a prodigious number of drawers, which 
 were labelled after the manner of those in an apo- 
 thecary's shop, (from whence he denied, however, 
 that he first took the hint.) and the labels were 
 arranged in alphabetical order. 
 
 " Now," says he, " as the excellence of poetry 
 consists in bringing before the mind's eye what 
 can be brought before the corporeal eye, I have 
 here collected every object that is either beautiful 
 or pleasing in nature, whether by its form, colour, 
 fragrance, sweetness, or other quality, as well as 
 those that are strikingly disagreeable. When I 
 wish to exhibit those pictures which constitute 
 11* 
 
I2G 
 
 poetry, I consult the appropriate cabinet, and I 
 take my choice of those various substances which 
 can best call up the image I wish to present to my 
 reader. For example: suppose I wish to speak of 
 any object that is white, or analogous to white, I 
 open the drawer that is thus labelled, and I see 
 silver, lime, chalk, and white enamel, ivory, paper, 
 snow-drops, and alabaster, and select whichever 
 of these substances will best suit the measure and 
 the rhyme, and has the most soft-sounding name. 
 If the colour be yellow, then there are substances 
 of all shades of this hue, from saffron and pickled 
 salmon to brimstone and straw. I have sixty-two 
 red substances, twenty-seven green ones, and 
 others in the same proportion. It is astonishing 
 what labour this box has saved me, and how much 
 it has added to the beauty and melody of my 
 verse. 
 
 " You perceive," he added, " the drawer miss- 
 ing. That contained substances offensive to the 
 sight or smell, which my maid, conducted to it 
 by her nose, conceived to be some animal curio- 
 sities I had been collecting, in a state of putre- 
 faction and decay, and did not hesitate to throw 
 them into the fire. I afterwards found myself 
 very much at a loss, whenever my subject led me 
 to the mention of objects of this character, and I 
 
127 
 
 therefore spoke of them as seldom as possible." 
 After bestowing that tribute of admiration and 
 praise which every great author or inventor ex- 
 pects, in his own house, and not omitting his cus- 
 tomary medical fee, we took our leave. 
 
 We had not long left Vindar's house, before we 
 saw a short fat man in the suburbs, preparing to 
 climb to the top of a plane tree, on which there 
 was one of the tail feathers of a sort of flamingo. 
 He was surrounded by attendants and servants, to 
 whom he issued his commands with great rapidity 
 and decision, occasionally intermingling with his 
 orders the most threatening language and furious 
 gesticulations. Some offered to get a ladder, and 
 ascend, and others to cut down the tree ; all of 
 which he obstinately rejected. He swore he 
 would get the feather — he would get it by climb- 
 ing — and he would climb but one way, which 
 way was on the shoulders of his men. His plan 
 was to make a number of them form a solid 
 square, and interlock their arms ; then a smaller 
 number to mount upon their shoulders, on whom 
 others were in like manner placed, and so on till 
 the pyramid was sufficiently high, when he him- 
 self was to mount, and from the shoulders of the 
 highest pluck the darling object of his wishes. He 
 had in this way, I afterwards learnt, gathered 
 
128 
 
 some of the richest flowers of the bignonia scarla- 
 tina, as well as such fruits as had tempted him by 
 their luscious appearance, and at the same time 
 frightening all the birds from their nests, which he 
 commonly destroyed : and although some of his 
 attendants were occasionally much hurt and 
 bruised in this singular amusement, he still perse- 
 vered in it. He had continued it for several years, 
 with no intermission, except a short one, when he 
 was engaged in breaking a young liana in the 
 place of an old one, which had been many years 
 a favourite, but was now in disgrace, because, as 
 he said, he did not think it so safe for going down 
 hill, but in reality, because he liked the figure 
 and movements of the young one better. 
 
 I could not see this rash Glonglim attempt to 
 climb that dangerous ladder, without feeling 
 alarm for his safety. At first all seemed to go on 
 very well ; but just as he was about to lay hold of 
 the gaudy prize, there arose a sudden squall, 
 which threw both him and his supporters into 
 confusion, and the whole living pyramid came to 
 the ground together. Many were killed — some 
 were wounded and bruised. Polenap himself, by 
 lighting on his men, who served him as cushions,, 
 barely escaped with life. But he received a frac- 
 ture in the upper part of his head, and a disloca- 
 
129 
 
 tion of the hip, which will not only prevent him 
 from ever climbing again, but probably make him 
 a cripple for life. 
 
 The Brahmin and I endeavoured to give the 
 sufferers some assistance; but this was rendered 
 unnecessary, by the crowd which their cries and 
 lamentations brought to their relief. I thought 
 that the author uf so much mischief would have 
 been stoned on the spot ; but, to my surprise, his 
 servants seemed to feel as much for his honour 
 as their own safety, and warmly interfered in his 
 behalf, until they had somewhat appeased the 
 rage of the surrounding multitude. 
 
130 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The fortune-telling philosopher, who inspected the 
 finger nails : his visiters — Another philosopher, 
 who judged of the character by the hair — The 
 
 fortune-teller duped Predatory warfare. 
 
 As we returned to our lodgings, we saw a num- 
 ber of persons, some of whom were entering and 
 some leaving a neat small dwelling ; and on join- 
 ing the throng, we learnt that a famous fortune- 
 teller lived there, who, at stated periods, opened 
 his house to all that were willing to pay for being 
 instructed in the events of futurity, or for having 
 the secrets of the present or past revealed to 
 them. On entering the house, and descending a 
 flight of steps, we found, at the farther end of a 
 dark room, lighted with a chandelier suspended 
 from the ceiling, an elderly man, with a long gray 
 beard, and a thin, pale countenance, deeply fur- 
 rowed with thought rather than care. He receiv- 
 ed us politely, and then resumed the duties of his 
 vocation. His course of proceeding was to ex- 
 amine the finger nails, and, according to their 
 form, colour, thickness, surface, and grain, to de- 
 
131 
 
 lermine the character and destinies of those who 
 consulted him. I was at once pleased and sur- 
 prised at the minuteness of his observation, and 
 the infinite variety of his distinctions. Besides the 
 qualities of the nails that I have mentioned, he 
 noticed some which altogether eluded my senses, 
 such as their milkiness, flintiness, friability, elasti- 
 city, tenacity, and sensibility; whether they were 
 aqueous, unctious, or mealy ; with many more, 
 which have escaped my recollection. 
 
 A modest, pensive looking girl, apparently 
 about seventeen, was timidly holding forth her 
 hand for examination, at the time we entered. 
 Avarabet, (for that was the name of this philoso- 
 pher,) uttered two or three words, with a signifi- 
 cant shake of his head, upon which 1 saw the 
 rising tear in her eyes. She withdrew her hand, 
 and had not courage to let him take another look. 
 
 A fat woman, of a sanguine temperament, hold- 
 ing a little girl by the hand, then stepped up and 
 showed her fingers. He pronounced her amorous, 
 inconstant, prone to anger, and extravagant; that 
 she had made one man miserable, and would pro- 
 bably make another. She also abruptly with- 
 drew, giving manifest signs of one of the qualities 
 ascribed to her. 
 
 An elderly matron then approached, holding 
 
132 
 
 forth one trembling, palsied hand, with a small 
 volume in the other. Avarabet hesitated for some 
 time ; examined the edges as well as the surface 
 of the nails ; drew his finger slowly over them, 
 and then said, — " You have a susceptible heart; 
 you are in sorrow, but your affliction will soon 
 have an end." It was easy to see, in the look of 
 the applicant, signs of pious resignation, and a 
 lively hope of another and a better state of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 I thought I perceived in the scene that was 
 passing before us, an exhibition that is not un- 
 common on our earth, of cunning knavery impo- 
 sing on ignorance and credulity ; and I expressed 
 my opinion to the Brahmin ; but he assured me 
 that the class of persons in the moon, who were 
 resorted to on account of their supposed powers 
 of divination, was very different from the similar 
 class in Asia or Europe, and that oracular art was 
 here regularly studied and professed as a branch 
 of philosophy. " You would be surprised," said 
 he, " to find how successful they have been in 
 investing their craft with the forms and trappings 
 of science, the parade of classification, and the 
 mystery imparted by technical terms. By these 
 means they have given plausibility enough to their 
 theories, to leave many a one in doubt, whether it 
 
133 
 
 is really a new triumph of human discovery, or 
 merely a later form of empiricism. Its professors 
 are commonly converts to their own theories, at 
 least in a great degree ; for, strange as it may 
 seem, there can mingle with the disposition to 
 deceive others, the power of deceiving one's self; 
 and while they exercise much acuteness and 
 penetration in discovering, by the air, look, dress, 
 and manner of those who consult them, the lead- 
 ing points in the history or character of persons of 
 whom they have no previous knowledge, they at 
 the same time persuade themselves that they see 
 something indicative of their circumstances in 
 their finger nails. Such is the equivocal charac- 
 ter of the greater part of their sect : but there are 
 some who are mere honest dupes to the preten- 
 sions of the science ; and others again, who have 
 not one tittle of credulity to extenuate their impu- 
 dent pretensions. 
 
 " When I was here before, I remember a phy- 
 sician, who acquired great celebrity by affecting 
 to cure diseases by examining a lock of the pa- 
 tient's hair ; and, not content with merely pro- 
 nouncing on the nature of the disease, and sug- 
 gesting the remedy, he would enter into an ela- 
 borate, and often plausible course of reasoning, in 
 defence of his system. That system was briefly 
 12 
 
134 
 
 this: that the hair derived its length, strength, 
 hue, and other properties, from the brain ; which 
 opinion lie supported by a reference to acknow- 
 ledged facts — as, that it changes its hue with the 
 difference of the mental character in the different 
 stages of life ; that violent affections of the mind, 
 such as grief or fear, have been known to change 
 it in a single night. Science on this, as on other 
 occasions, is merely augmenting and methodizing 
 facts that the mass of mankind had long observ- 
 ed — as, that red hair had always been considered 
 indicative of warm temperament ; that affliction, 
 and even love, were believed to create baldness ; 
 and that in great terror, the hair stands on end. 
 The different ages too, are distinguished as much 
 by their hair as their complexion, their facial 
 angle, or in any other way. He was led to this 
 theory first, by observing at school that a boy of 
 a stiff, bristly head of hair, was remarkably cruel. 
 He professed to have been able, from a long 
 course of observation, to assign to every different 
 colour and variety of hair, its peculiar tempera- 
 ment and character. One mental quality was in- 
 dicated by its length, another by its fineness, and 
 others again as it chanced to be greasy, or lank, 
 or curled. He would also blow on it with a bel- 
 lows, to see how the parts arranged themselves ; 
 
135 
 
 hold it near the fire, and watch the operation of 
 its crisping by the heat: and although he had 
 often been mistaken in his estimates of character, 
 by the rules of his new science, he did not lose 
 the confidence of his disciples on that account — 
 some of them refusing to believe the truth, rather 
 than to admit themselves mistaken ; and others 
 insisting that, if his science was not infallible, it 
 very rarely deceived. 
 
 It was now our turn to submit our hands to 
 Avarabet for examination. He discovered signs of 
 the loftiest virtues and most heroic enterprise in 
 the Brahmin ; and, near the bottom of one of his 
 nails, a deep-rooted sorrow, which would leave 
 him only with his life. A transient shade of gloom 
 on the Brahmin's countenance was soon succeed- 
 ed by a piercing, inquisitive glance cast on the 
 diviner. He saw the other's eyes directed on the 
 miniature which he always wore, and which dis- 
 covered itself to Avarabet as he stooped forward. 
 A smile of contempt now took the place of his 
 first surprise, and he seemed in a state of abstrac- 
 tion, during the continued rhapsodies of the 
 oracle. 
 
 My hand was next examined ; but little was 
 said of me, except that 1 had been a great travel- 
 ler, and should be so again ; that 1 should en- 
 
136 
 
 counter many dangers and difficulties ; that I 
 possessed more intelligence than sensibility, and 
 more prudence than generosity. Thus he disco- 
 vered in me great courage, enterprise, and con- 
 stancy of purpose. 
 
 A hale, robust, well-set man, now bursting 
 through the crowd, and thrusting out his hand, 
 abruptly asked the wise man to tell him, if he 
 could, in what part of the country he lived. Ava- 
 rabet mentioned a distant district on the coast of 
 Morosofia. 
 
 " Good," said the other ; " and what is my 
 calling ?" 
 
 After a slight pause, he replied, that he got his 
 living on the water. 
 
 " Good again. Shall I ever be rich ?" 
 
 " No, not very : — never." 
 
 " Better and better," rejoined the inquirer, at 
 the same time giving vent to a loud and hearty 
 laugh. Surely, thought I, sailors are every where 
 the same sort of beings, rough and boisterous as 
 the elements they roam over. 
 
 " And what is your opinion of me farther ?" 
 
 " You are bold, frank, improvident, credulous, 
 and good-natured." 
 
 " Excellent, indeed ! Now, what will you say, 
 old sham wisdom, when I tell you that I never 
 
137 
 
 made a voyage in my life ; was never two days 1 
 journey from this spot, and am seldom off my 
 own dominion ? That I own the forest of Ton- 
 gloo, where I sometimes hunt, from morning till 
 night, and from night till morning, twelve out of 
 the thirteen days in the year ? That my wealth, 
 which was considerable when I came to my 
 estate, has, by my habits of life, greatly increased, 
 and that I am bent upon adding to it yet more ? 
 I drink nothing but water ; and have come here 
 only to win a wager, that you were not as know- 
 ing as. you pretended to be, and that I could im- 
 pose on you. You thus have a specimen of my 
 candour, improvidence, and credulity. 11 So say- 
 ing, he leaped on his zebra, gave a sort of hunts- 
 man's shout, and was off in a twinkling. 
 
 This adventure created great tumult in the 
 crowd, a few enjoying the jest, but the greater 
 number manifesting ill-will and resentment to- 
 wards the sportsman. The Brahmin and I took 
 advantage of the confusion, to withdraw unno- 
 ticed by the bystanders. After remaining at our 
 lodgings long enough to take rest nnd refreshment, 
 and to make minutes of what we had seen, we 
 proposed to spend the remainder of the night in 
 the country, the weather being more pleasant at 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 this time in that climate, than when the sun is 
 above the horizon. 
 
 We accordingly set out when the earth was in 
 her second quarter, and it was about two of our 
 days before sunrise. After walking about three 
 miles, the freshness of the morning air, the fra- 
 grance of the flowers, and the music of innumer- 
 able birds, whose unceasing carols testified their 
 joy and delight at the approach of a more genial 
 month, we came to a large, well cultivated farm, 
 in which a number of coarse looking men were 
 employed, with the aid of dogs, cross-bows, and 
 other martial weapons, in hunting down llamas, 
 and a small kind of buffalo, which, in one of our 
 former walks, we had seen quietly feeding on a 
 rich and extensive pasture. We inquired of some 
 stragglers from the throng, the meaning of what 
 we saw ; but they were too much occupied with 
 their sport to afford us any satisfaction. We 
 walked on, indulging our imaginations in conjec- 
 ture ; but had not proceeded more than a quarter 
 of a mile, before we beheld a similar scene going 
 on to our left, by the same ill-looking crew. Our 
 curiosity was now/ redoubled, and we resolved to 
 wait a while on the highway, for the chance of 
 some passenger more at leisure to answer our in- 
 quiries, and more courteously inclined than these 
 
139 
 
 fierce marauders. We had not stopped many 
 minutes, before a well-dressed man, wearing the 
 appearance of authority, having ridden up, we 
 asked him to explain the cause of their violent, 
 and seemingly lawless proceedings. 
 
 " You are strangers, I see, or you would have 
 understood that I am exercising my baronial pri- 
 vilege of doing myself justice. These cattle be- 
 long to the owners of a neighbouring estate, by 
 whom I and my tenants have been injured and 
 insulted ; and, according to the usage in such 
 cases, I have given the signal to my people to 
 lay hold on what they can of his flocks and herds, 
 and, to quicken their exertions, I give them half 
 of what they catch. 11 
 
 " And how does your neighbour bear this in the 
 mean time V said the Brahmin. 
 
 " Oh, for that matter, 11 said the other, " he is 
 not at all behindhand, and I lose nearly as many 
 cattle as I get. But it gives me much more plea- 
 sure to kill one of his buffaloes or llamas, than it 
 does pain me when he kills one of mine. I consider 
 how much it will vex him, and that some of his 
 vassals are thereby deprived of their sustenance. 
 I have upwards of thirty strong men employed in 
 ranging this plain and wood, and during the last 
 year they took for me four hundred head. 1 ' 
 
140 
 
 " Indeed ! — and how many did you lose in the 
 same time ?" 
 
 " Not above three hundred and eighty. 11 
 
 " But very inferior? 11 said the Brahmin. 
 
 " Why, no, 11 replied he : " as my pastures are 
 richer and more luxuriant than his, two of my 
 cattle are worth perhaps three of his." 
 
 " Is this custom, 11 asked the Brahmin, " an ad- 
 vantage or a tax on your estate ?" 
 
 " A tax, indeed ! Why it is worth from four to 
 five hundred head a-year. 11 
 
 " And how much is it worth to your neigh- 
 bour V 
 
 " 1 presume nearly as much. 11 
 
 " Do your vassals get rich by the bounty you 
 give them? 11 
 
 " As to that matter, some who are lucky suc- 
 ceed very well, and the rest make a living by it." 
 
 " And what do they give you for the privilege 
 of hunting your neighbour's cattle ?" 
 
 " Nothing at all : I even lose my customary 
 rent from those who engage in it." 
 
 "And it is the same case with your neighbour ?" 
 
 " Certainly," said he. 
 
 " Then," said the Brahmin, " it seems to me, if 
 you would agree to lay aside this old custom, you 
 would both be considerable gainers. 1 see you 
 
141 
 
 look incredulous, but listen a moment. Each one 
 would, in that case, instead of having half his 
 neighbour's cattle, have all his own ; and, being 
 kept in their native pastures, they would be less 
 likely to stray away, and you could therefore slay 
 and eat as you wanted them ; whereas, in your 
 hunting matches many more are either killed or 
 maimed than are wanted for present use, and 
 they are consequently consumed in waste. You 
 would, moreover, be a gainer by the amount of 
 the labour of these thirty boors, whom you keep 
 in this employment, and who very probably ac- 
 quire habits of ferocity, licentiousness, and waste, 
 which are not very favourable to their obedience 
 or fidelity.' 1 
 
 The proprietor, having pondered a while upon 
 my friend's remarks, in a tone of exultation said, — 
 " Do you think, then, I could ever prevail on my 
 people to forbear, when they saw a likely flock, 
 from laying violent hands on it; or could I resist 
 so favourable an opportunity of revenge ? Nay, 
 more ; if we were then tamely to tie up our hands, 
 do you think that Bulderent and his men would 
 consent to do the same ? No, no, old man," he 
 continued, with great self-complacency, " your 
 arguments appear plausible at first, but when 
 closely considered, they will not stand the test of 
 
142 
 
 experience. They are the fancies of a stranger 
 — of one who knows more of theory than prac- 
 tice. Had you lived longer among us, you would 
 have known that your ingenious project could 
 never be carried into execution. If I observed it, 
 Bulderent would not ; and if he observed it, I ve- 
 rily believe I could not — and thus, you see, the 
 thing is altogether impracticable. 1 ' As one soon 
 tires of preaching to the winds, the Brahmin con- 
 tented himself with asking his new acquaintance 
 fo think more on the subject at his leisure ; and 
 we proceeded on our walk. 
 
J 43 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The travellers visit a gentleman farmer, who is a 
 great projector : his breed of cattle : his appa- 
 ratus for cooking: lie is taken dangerously ill, 
 
 After we had gone about half a mile farther, 
 our attention was arrested by a gate of very sin- 
 gular character. It was extremely ingenious in 
 its structure, arid, among other peculiarities, it 
 had three or four latches, for children, for grown 
 persons, for those who were tall and those who 
 were short, and for the right hand as well as the 
 left. In the act of opening, it was made to crush 
 certain berries, and the oil they yielded, was car- 
 ried by a small duct to the hinge, which was thus 
 made to turn easily, and was prevented from 
 creaking. While we were admiring its mechan- 
 ism, an elderly man, rather plainly dressed, on a 
 zebra in low condition, rode up, and showed that 
 he was the owner of the mansion to which the 
 gate belonged, and that he was not displeased 
 with the curiosity we manifested. We found him 
 both intelligent and obliging. He informed us 
 that he was an experimental farmer ; and when 
 
144 
 
 he learnt that we were strangers, and anxious to 
 inform ourselves of the state of agriculture in the 
 country, he very civilly invited us to take our next 
 meal with him. Our walk having now made us 
 hungry and fatigued, we gladly accepted of his 
 hospitality; whereupon he alighted, and walked 
 with us to his lodgings. 
 
 He was very communicative of his modes of 
 cultivation and management, but chiefly prided 
 himself on his success in improving the size of his 
 cattle. He informed us that he had devoted six- 
 teen years of his life to this object, and had then 
 in his farm-yard a buffalo nearly as heavy as 
 three of the ordinary size. His practice was to 
 kill all the young animals which were not uncom- 
 monly large and thrifty ; to cram those he kept, 
 with as much food as they would eat, and to 
 tempt their appetites by the variety of their nou- 
 rishment, as well as of the modes of preparing it. 
 
 " All this, 11 said he, " costs a great deal, it is 
 true; but I am paid for it by the additional price. 1 ' 
 I was struck with this notable triumph of indus- 
 try and skill in the goodly art of husbandry — that 
 art which I venerate above every other ; and I 
 was all anxiety to receive from him some instruc- 
 tions which 1 might, in case I should have the 
 good fortune to get safely back, communicate to 
 
145 
 
 my friends on Long-Island, who had never been 
 able even to double the common size, and who 
 boasted greatly of that: but a hesitating look, and 
 a few inquiries on the part of my sly friend, check- 
 ed my enthusiasm. 
 
 " Have you always," he asked, " had the same 
 number of acres in grain and grass under your 
 new and old system ?" 
 
 " Pretty nearly, 1 '' says the other. " My new 
 breed, however, though fewer, consume more than 
 their predecessors." 
 
 " How many head did you formerly sell in a 
 year ?" 
 
 " About thirty." 
 
 " How many do you now sell ?" 
 
 " Though for some years I have not sold more 
 than nine or ten, I expect to exceed that number 
 in another year." 
 
 " Which you expect will yield you more than 
 the thirty did formerly ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; because such meat as mine com- 
 mands an extraordinary price." 
 
 " So long," replied the Brahmin, " as this is 
 novelty, you may receive a part of the price which 
 men are ever ready to pay for it ; but as soon as 
 others profit by your example, your meat falls to 
 the ordinary rate, and then, if I understand you 
 13 
 
140 
 
 aright, as you will have somewhat less in quan- 
 tity than you formerly had, your gross receipts will 
 be less, to say nothing of your additional labour 
 and expense.' 1 
 
 " But who has the skill," quickly rejoined the 
 other, " of which I can boast? and who would 
 take the same trouble, although they had the 
 skill ?" 
 
 " But stop here a moment," said our host, " till 
 I go to see how my last improved oil-cake is re- 
 lished by my cattle.' 1 
 
 The Brahmin then turning to me, said, — " This 
 gentlemnn may, indeed, improve his fortune by 
 the business of a grazier ; but the same pains and 
 unremitting attention would always be sure of a 
 liberal reward, though the system on which they 
 were exerted was not among the best. Nothing, 
 my dear Atterley, is more true than the saying of 
 your wise book — that all flesh is grass ; and it 
 always takes the same quantity of one to make a 
 given quantity of the other, whether that given 
 quantity may be in the form of a single individual, 
 or two or three. But in the former case, great 
 labour is required to force nature beyond her 
 ordinary limits, and the same labour must be un- 
 ceasingly kept up, or she will certainly relapse to 
 her original dimensions. This system may do, as 
 
147 
 
 our host here tells us it actually does, for the 
 moon, but it is not suited to our earth. If, how- 
 ever, you arc ambitious of a name among the 
 speculative men of your country, this little stone,' 1 
 added he, stooping, and picking up a small stone 
 from the ground, " will answer your purpose quite 
 as well as any improvement in husbandry. It is 
 precisely of the same species as those which we 
 threw over in our aerial voyages, and which, 
 though correctly called moon-stones by the vul- 
 gar, (who are oftener right than the learned sup- 
 pose,) some of the western philosophers declared 
 to have been gravitated in the atmosphere. 1 ' 
 
 " And is this really the origin, 11 said I, " of 
 that strange phenomenon, which has furnished so 
 much matter of speculation to the sages both of 
 Europe and America V 
 
 " Nothing is more true, 11 replied he. " These 
 stones are common to the earth and to the moon ; 
 and some of those which have been so carefully 
 analyzed by your most celebrated chemists, and 
 pronounced different from any known mineral 
 production of the earth, were small fragments of 
 a very common rock in the mountains of Burma. 
 In our first voyages we had taken some of them 
 with us as ballast ; and those which we first 
 threw over, we afterwards learnt from the public 
 
148 
 
 journals, fell in France, some of the others fell in 
 India, but the greater number in the ocean. 
 Those which have fallen at other times, have been 
 real fossils of the moon, and either such stones as 
 this I hold in my hand, or such metallic substan- 
 ces as are repelled from that body, and attracted 
 towards the earth; and it is the force with which 
 they strike the earth, which first suggested the 
 idea of a thunder-bolt. 
 
 " Our party were greatly amused at the dispu- 
 tations of a learned society in Europe, in which 
 they undertook to give a mathematical demon- 
 stration that they could not be thrown from a vol- 
 cano of the earth, nor from the moon, but were 
 suddenly formed in the atmosphere. I should as 
 soon believe that a loaf of bread could be made 
 and baked in the atmosphere." 
 
 Finding that our landlord prided himself on his 
 interior management, as well as on that without 
 doors, we expressed a wish to see some of his 
 household improvements. He readily consented, 
 and conducted us at once into his kitchen, and 
 showed us inventions and contrivances out of 
 number, for saving fuel, and meat, and labour ; in 
 short, for saving every thing but money. The 
 large room into which he carried us, appeared as 
 a vast laboratorv, from the infinite variety of pots, 
 
149 
 
 pans, skillets, knives, forks, ladles, mortars, sieves, 
 funnels, and other utensils of metal, glass, pottery, 
 and wood. The steam which he used for cook- 
 ing, was carried along a pipe under a succession 
 of kettles and boilers, descending in regular gra- 
 dation, by which a great saving of fuel was effect- 
 ed ; and, to perfect this part of the apparatus, the 
 pipe could be removed, to give place to one of 
 the size suited to the occasion. 
 
 His seven-guest pipe was now in use. The 
 wood, which was all cut to the same length, and 
 channelled out to admit the free passage of the 
 air, was then duly placed in the stove, and set on 
 fire ; but the heat not passing very readily through 
 all the sinuosities of the pipe, he ordered his head 
 cook to screw on his exhauster. The man, in less 
 than ten minutes, unscrewed a plate at the far- 
 ther end, and fixed on an air-pump, made for the 
 purpose, on which the door of the stove suddenly 
 slammed to. Our host saw the accident, and hur- 
 rying to open the stove, fell over a heap of chan- 
 nelled logs, and cut a gash in his forehead. The 
 cook ran to help him up ; and after he was on his 
 legs, and his forehead wiped, the stove was open- 
 ed, when the fire, which had been deprived of its 
 aliment, was entirely extinguished. I thought he 
 was hardly sorry for the accident, as it afforded 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 him an occasion of showing how ingeniously he 
 kindled a fire. He had an electric machine 
 brought to him, by means of which he set fire to 
 a few grains of gunpowder ; this lighted some 
 tinder, which again ignited spirits, whose blaze 
 reached the lower extremity of h' - lamp. Taking 
 the precaution of keeping the stove open this 
 time, the air was again exhausted at the farther 
 end of the pipe, and in a little time the flame was 
 seen to ascend even to the air-pump, and to 
 scorch the parts made of wood ; whereupon I saw 
 a glow of triumph on his face, which amply com- 
 pensated him for his wound and vexation. There 
 was a grand machine for roasting, that carried 
 the fire round the meat, the juices of which, he 
 said, by a rotary motion, would be thrown to the 
 surface, and either evaporate or be deteriorated. 
 Here was also his digestor, for making soup of 
 rams' horns, which he assured me contained a 
 good deal of nourishment, and the only difficulty 
 was in extracting it. He next showed us his 
 smoke-retractor, which received the smoke near 
 the top of the chimney, and brought it down to be 
 burnt over again, by which he computed that he 
 saved five cords and a half of wood in a year. 
 The fire which dressed his victuals, pumped up, by 
 means of a steam engine, water for the kitchen 
 
151 
 
 turned one or more spits, as well as two or three 
 mills for grinding pepper, salt, &c. ; and then, by 
 a spindle through the wall, worked a churn in the 
 dairy, and cleaned the knives : the forks, indeed, 
 were still cleaned by hand ; but he said he did not 
 despair of effecting this operation in time, by 
 machinery. I mentioned to him our contrivance 
 of silver forks, to lessen this labour ; but he coldly 
 remarked, that he imagined science was in its 
 infancy with us. 
 
 He informed us that he had been ten years in 
 completing this ingenious machine; and certainly, 
 when it was in full operation, I never saw exulta- 
 tion and delight so strongly depicted in any hu- 
 man face. The various sounds and sights, that 
 met the ear and eye, in rapid succession, still far- 
 ther worked on his feelings, and heightened his 
 raptures. There was such a simmering, and hiss- 
 ing, and bubbling of boiled, and broiled, and fried 
 — such a whirling, and jerking, and creaking of 
 wheels, and cranks, and pistons — such clouds of 
 steam, and vapours, and even smoke, notwith- 
 standing all of the latter that was burnt, — that I 
 almost thought myself in some great manufactory. 
 
 After having suffered as much as we could well 
 bear, from the heat and confined air of this labo- 
 ratory of eatables, and passed the proper number 
 
152 
 
 of compliments on the skill and ingenuity they 
 displayed, we ascended to his hall, to partake of 
 that feast, to prepare which we had seen all the 
 elements and the mechanical powers called into 
 action. There were a few of his city acquaintan- 
 ces present, besides ourselves : but whether it was 
 owing to the effect of the steam from the dishes 
 on our stomachs, or that this scientific cookery 
 was not suited to our unpractised palates, I know 
 not, but we all made an indifferent repast, except 
 our host, who tasted every dish, and seemed to 
 relish them all. 
 
 After sitting some time at table, conversing on 
 the progress of science, its splendid achievements, 
 and the pleasing prospects which it yet dimly 
 showed in the future, our hospitable entertainer, 
 perceiving we were fatigued with the labours of 
 the day, invited us to take our next Jalk/ncce, or 
 sleep, with him, for which hospitality we felt very 
 grateful. We were then shown to a room, in 
 which there were marks of the same fertile inven- 
 tion, in saving labour and promoting convenience; 
 but we were too sleepy to take much notice of 
 them. Our beds were filled with air, which is 
 quite as good as feathers, except that when the 
 leather covering gets a hole in it, from ripping, or 
 other accidents, it loses its elasticity with its air — 
 
153 
 
 an accident which happened to me this very 
 night; for a mouse having gnawed the leather 
 where the housemaid's greasy fingers had left a 
 mark, I sunk gently down, not to soft repose, but 
 on the hard planks, where I uncomfortably lay 
 until the bell warned us to rise for breakfast. 
 
 As soon as I was dressed, I walked out into a 
 large garden, and, as the sun was not yet so high 
 as to make it sultry, was enjoying the balmy 
 sweetness of the air, and the flowering shrubs, 
 which in beauty and fragrance almost exceeded 
 those of India, when I saw a servant run by the 
 garden wall, enter the stable, and bring out a 
 zebra. On inquiring the cause, I was made to 
 understand that our noble host was taken sud- 
 denly ill. I immediately returned to the house, 
 and found the domestics running to and fro, and 
 manifesting the greatest anxiety, as well as hurry, 
 in their looks. I went into the Brahmin's room, 
 and found him dressed. He went out, and after 
 some time, informed me that our kind host had a 
 violent cholera morbus, in consequence of the va- 
 rious kinds of food with which he had overloaded 
 his stomach at dinner ; that he considered himself 
 near his last end, and was endeavouring to ar- 
 range his affairs for the event. 
 
 I could not help meditating on the melancholy 
 
154 
 
 uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the 
 comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious 
 usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a 
 short time since, with the agony which that trying 
 and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most 
 callous heart — when it must quit this state of 
 being for another, of which it knows so little, and 
 over which fear and doubt throw a gloom that 
 hope cannot entirely dispel. 
 
155 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Lunarian physicians: their consultation — While 
 they dispute the patient recovers — The travel- 
 lers visit the celebrated teacher Lozzi Pozzi. 
 
 While I indulged in these sad meditations, and 
 felt for my host while I felt no less for myself, I saw 
 the physician approach who had been sent for. 
 He was a tall, thin man, with a quick step, a lively, 
 piercing eye, a sallow complexion, and very cour- 
 teous manners, and always willing to display the 
 ready flow of words for which he was remarkable. 
 I felt great curiosity to witness the skill of this 
 Lunar iEsculapius, and he was evidently pleased 
 with the interest I manifested. It turned out that 
 he was well acquainted with the Brahmin ; and 
 learning from the latter my wish, he conducted 
 me into the room of our sick host. We found him 
 lying on a straw bed, and strangely altered within 
 a few hours. The physician, after feeling his 
 pulse, (which, as every country has its peculiar 
 customs, is done here about the temples and neck, 
 instead of the wrist) — after examining his tongue, 
 his teeth, his water, and feces, proposed bleeding. 
 
156 
 
 Wc all walked to the door, and ventured to op- 
 pose the doctor's prescription, suggesting that the 
 copious evacuations he had already experienced, 
 might make bleeding useless, if not dangerous. 
 
 " How little like a man of sense you speak, 11 
 said the other ; " how readily you have chimed in 
 with the prejudices of the vulgar ! I should have 
 expected better things from you : but the sway of 
 empiricism is destined yet to have a long struggle 
 before it receives its final overthrow. I have 
 attacked it with success in many quarters; but 
 when it has been prostrated in one place, it soon 
 rises up in another. Have you, my good friend, 
 seen my last essay on morbid action ?" 
 
 The Brahmin replied, that he had not yet had 
 an opportunity of meeting with it. 
 
 " I am sorry you have not, 11 said the other. ',' I 
 have there completely demonstrated that disease 
 is an unit, and that it is the extreme of folly to 
 divide diseases into classes, which tend but to 
 produce confusion of ideas, and an unscientific 
 practice. Sir," 1 continued he, in a more animated 
 tone, " there is a beautiful simplicity in this the- 
 ory, which gives us assurance of its conformity to 
 nature and truth. It needs but to be seen to be 
 understood — but to be understood, to be approv- 
 ed, and carried into successful operation." 
 
157 
 
 The Brahmin asked him if this unit did not 
 present different symptoms on different occasions. 
 
 "Certainly," he replied: "from too much or 
 too little action, in this set of vessels or that, it is 
 differently modified, and must be treated accord- 
 ingly." 
 
 " This unit, then," said my friend, " assumes 
 different forms, and requires various remedies? 
 Is there not, then, a convenience in separating 
 these modifications (or forms, if you prefer it) 
 from one another, by different names ?" 
 
 " Stop, my friend ; you do not apprehend the 
 matter. I will explain." At this moment two 
 other gentlemen, of a grave aspect and demean- 
 our, entered the room. They also were physi- 
 cians of great reputation in the city. They 
 appeared to be formal and reserved towards one 
 another, but they each manifested still more shy- 
 ness and coldness towards the learned Shuro. 
 They entered the sick chamber, and having in- 
 formed themselves of the state of the patient, all 
 three withdrew to a consultation. 
 
 They had not been long together, before their 
 voices grew, from a whisper, so loud, that we 
 could distinctly hear all they said. " Sir," says 
 Dr. Shakrack, " the patient is in a state of direct 
 debility : we must stimulate, if we would restore 
 14 
 
158 
 
 a healthy action. Pour in the stimulantia and 
 britentia, and my life for it, the patient is saved/' 
 " Will you listen to me for one moment? 11 says 
 Dr. Dridrano, the youngest of the three gentle- 
 men. " It may be presumption for one of my 
 humble pretensions to set myself in opposition to 
 persons of your age, experience, and celebrity; 
 but I am bound, by the sacred duties of the high 
 functions I have undertaken to perform, to use 
 my poor abilities in such a way as I can, to ad- 
 vance the noble science of medicine, and, in so 
 doing, to give strength to the weak, courage to 
 the disheartened, and comfort to the afflicted. 
 Gentlemen, I say, I hope if my simple views 
 should be found widely different from yours, you 
 will not impute it to a presumption which is as 
 foreign to my nature as it would be unsuited to 
 your merits. I consider the human body a mere 
 machine, whose parts are complicated, whose 
 functions are various, and whose operations are 
 liable to be impeded and frustrated by a variety 
 of obstacles. There is, you know, one set of tubes, 
 or vessels, for the blood ; another for the lymph ; 
 another for the sweat ; and so on. Now, although 
 each of these fluids has its several channels, yet, 
 if by any accident any one of them is obstruct- 
 ed, and there is so great an accumulation of the 
 
159 
 
 obstructed fluid that it cannot find vent by its 
 natural channel, or duct, then you must carry off 
 the redundancy by some other; for you well know, 
 that that which can be carried off by one, can be 
 carried off by all. Gentlemen, I beg you not to 
 turn away ; hear me for a moment. Then, if the 
 current of the blood be obstructed, I make large 
 draughts of urine, or sweat or saliva, or of the 
 liquor amnii ; and I find it matters little which of 
 these evacuants I resort to. This system, to 
 which, with deference to your longer experience, 
 I have had the honour of giving some celebrity in 
 Morosofia, explains how it is that such various 
 remedies for the same disease have been in vogue 
 at different times. They have all had in town 
 able advocates. I could adduce undeniable tes- 
 timonials of their efficacy, because, in fact, they 
 are all efficacious ; and it seems to me a mere 
 matter of earthshine, whether we resort to one or 
 the other mode of restoring the equilibrium of the 
 human machine ; all that we have to do, being to 
 know when and to what extent it is proper to use 
 either. Determine, then, gentlemen, — you, for 
 whose maturer judgment and years I feel pro- 
 found respect, — whether we shall blister, or sweat, 
 or bleed, or salivate. 1 ' 
 
 Dr. Shuro, who had manifested his impatience 
 
160 
 
 at this long harangue, by frequent interruptions, 
 and which Dridrano's show of deference could 
 scarcely keep down, hastily replied : " You have 
 manifestly taken the hint of your theory from me; 
 and because I have advanced the doctrine that 
 disease is an unit, you come forward now, and 
 insist that remedy is an unit too." 
 
 " You do me great honour, learned sir," said 
 Dridrano. " Surely it would be very unbecoming, 
 in one of my age and standing, to set up a theory 
 in opposition to yours, but it would be yet more 
 discreditable to be a plagiarist; and, with all due 
 respect for your superior wisdom, it does seem to 
 my feeble intellect, that no two theories can be 
 more different. You use several remedies for one 
 disease : I admit several diseases, and use one 
 remedy." 
 
 " And does not darkness remind us of light," 
 replied Shuro, " by the contrast ? heat of cold — 
 north of south ?" 
 
 " Gentlemen," then said Shakrack, who had 
 been walking to and fro, during the preceding 
 controversy, " as you seem to agree so ill with 
 each other, I trust you will unite in adopting my 
 course. Let us begin with this cordial ; we will 
 then vary the stimulus, if necessary, by means of 
 the elixir, and you will see the salutary effects 
 
161 
 
 immediately. A loss of blood would still farther 
 increase the debility of the patient; and I appeal 
 to your candour, Dr. Shuro, whether you ever 
 practised venesection in such a case ?" 
 
 " In such a case ? ay, in what you would call 
 much worse. I was not long since called in to a 
 man in a dropsy. I opened a vein. He seemed 
 from that moment to feel relief; and he so far 
 recovered, that after a short time I bled him 
 again. I returned the next day, and had I arrived 
 half an hour sooner, I should have bled him a 
 third time, and in all human probability have 
 saved his life." 
 
 " If you had stimulated him, you might have 
 had an opportunity of making your favourite 
 experiment a little oftener," said Shakrack. 
 
 " You are facetious, sir ; I imagine you have 
 been using your own panacea somewhat too 
 freely to-day." 
 
 " Not so," said his opponent, angrily ; " but if 
 you are not more guarded in your expressions, I 
 shall make use of yours, in a way you won't like." 
 
 Upon which they proceeded to blows, Dridrano 
 all the while bellowing, " I beg, my worthy se- 
 niors, for the honour of science, that you will 
 forbear !" 
 
 The noise of the dispute had waked the pa- 
 ll* 
 
162 
 
 tierit, who, learning the cause of the disturbance,, 
 calmly begged they would give themselves no 
 concern about him, but let him die in peace. 
 The domestics, who had been for some time lis- 
 tening to the dispute, on hearing the scuffle, ran 
 in and parted the angry combatants, who, like an 
 absces3 just lanced, were giving vent to all the 
 malignant humours that had been so long silently 
 gathering. 
 
 In the mean while, the smooth and considerate 
 Dr. Dridrano stept into the sick room, with the 
 view of offering an apology for the unmannerly 
 conduct of his brethren, and of tendering his sin- 
 gle services, as the other sages of the healing art 
 could not agree in the course to be pursued ; 
 when he found that the patient, profiting by the 
 simple remedies of the Brahmin, and an hour's 
 rest, had been so much refreshed, that he consi- 
 dered himself out of danger, and that he had no 
 need of medical assistance ; or, at any rate, he 
 was unwilling to follow the prescriptions of one 
 physician, which another, if not two others, unhe- 
 sitatingly condemned. Each one then received 
 his fee, and hurried home, to publish his own 
 statement of the case in a pamphlet. 
 
 The Brahmin, who had never left the sick man's 
 couch during his sleep, now that he was out of 
 
163 
 
 danger, was greatly diverted at the dispute. But 
 he good-naturedly added, that, notwithstanding 
 the ridiculous figure they had that day made, they 
 were all men of genius and ability, but had done 
 their parts injustice by their vanity, and the ambi- 
 tion of originating a new theory. " With all the 
 extravagance, 1 ' said he, " to which they push 
 their several systems, they are not unsuccessful in 
 practice, for habitual caution, and an instinctive 
 regard for human life, which they never can ex- 
 tinguish, checks them in carrying their hypotheses 
 into execution : and if I might venture to give an 
 opinion on a subject of which I know so little, 
 and there is so much to be known, I would say, 
 that the most common error of theorists is to con- 
 sider man as a machine, rather than an animal, 
 and subject to one set of the laws of matter, 
 rather than as subject to them all. 
 
 " Thus, 1 ' he continued, " we have been regard- 
 ed by one class of theorists as an hydraulic en- 
 gine, composed of various tubes fitted with their 
 several fluids, the laws and functions of which 
 have been deduced from calculations of veloci- 
 ties, altitudes, diameters, friction, &c. Another 
 class considered man as a mere chemical engine, 
 and his stomach as an alembic. The doctrine of 
 affinities, attractions, and repulsions, now had full 
 
164 
 
 play. Then came the notion of sympathies and 
 antipathies, by which name unknown and un- 
 knowable causes were sought to be explained, 
 and ignorance was cunningly veiled in mystery. 
 But the science will never be in the right tract 
 of improvement, until we consider, conjointly, the 
 mechanical operations of the fluids, the chemical 
 agency of the substances taken into the stomach, 
 and the animal functions of digestion, secretion, 
 and absorption, as evinced by actual observa- 
 tion." I told him that i believed that was now 
 the course which was actually pursued in the best 
 medical schools, both of Europe and America. 
 
 Our worthy host, though very feeble, had so far 
 recovered as to dress himself, and receive the con- 
 gratulations of his household, who had all mani- 
 fested a concern for his situation, that was at 
 once creditable to him and themselves. Express- 
 ing our gratitude for his kind attentions, and pro- 
 mising to renew our visit if we could, we bade 
 him adieu. 
 
 We took a different road home from the way 
 we had come, and had not walked far, before we 
 met a number of small boys, each having a bag 
 on his back, as large as he could stagger under. 
 Surprised at seeing children of their tender 
 years, thus prematurely put to severe labour, T 
 
165 
 
 was about to rail at the absurd custom of this 
 strange country, when my friend checked me for 
 my hasty judgment, and told me that these boys 
 were on their way to school, after their usual 
 monthly holiday. We attended them to their 
 schoolhouse, which stood in sight, on the side of 
 a steep chalky hill. The Brahmin told me that 
 the teacher's name was Lozzi Pozzi, and that he 
 had acquired great celebrity by his system of in- 
 struction. When the boys opened their bags, I 
 found that instead of books and provisions, as I 
 had expected, they were filled with sticks, which 
 they told us constituted the arithmetical lessons 
 they were required to practise at home. These 
 sticks were of different lengths and dimensions, 
 according to the number marked on them ; so 
 that by looking at thfi inscription, you could tell 
 the size, or by seeing or feeling the size, you 
 could tell the number. 
 
 The master now made his appearance, and 
 learning our errand, was very communicative. 
 He descanted on the advantages of this manual, 
 and ocular mode of teaching the science of num- 
 bers, and gave us practical illustrations of its effi- 
 cacy, by examining his pupils in our presence. 
 He told the first boy he called up, and who did 
 not seem to be more than seven or eight years of 
 
1G6 
 
 age, to add 5, 3, and 7 together, and tell him the 
 result. The little fellow set about hunting, with 
 great alacrity, over his bag, until he found a piece 
 divided like three fingers, then a piece with live 
 divisions, and lastly, one with seven, and putting 
 them side by side, he found the piece of a cor- 
 respondent length, and thus, in less than eight 
 minutes and a half, answered, " fifteen. 1 ' The 
 ingenious master then exercised another boy in 
 subtraction, and a third in multiplication : but the 
 latter was thrown into great confusion, for one of 
 the pieces having" lost a division, it led him to a 
 wrong result. 
 
 The teacher informed us that he taught geom- 
 etry in the same way, and had even extended it 
 to grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the art of com- 
 position. The rules of syntax were discovered by 
 pieces of wood, interlocking with each other in 
 squares, dovetails, &c., after the manner of geo- 
 graphical cards ; and as they chanced to fit toge- 
 ther, so was the concordance between the several 
 parts of speech ascertained. The machine for 
 composition occupied a large space; different 
 sets of synonymes were arranged in compart- 
 ments of various sizes. When the subject was 
 familiar, a short piece was used ; when it was 
 stately or heroic, then the longest slips that could 
 
167 
 
 be found were resorted to. Those that were 
 rounded at the ends were mellifluous; the jagged 
 ones were harsh ; the thick pieces expressed force 
 and vigour. Where the curves corresponded at 
 one end, they served for alliteration ; and when at 
 the other, they answered for rhyme. By way of 
 proving its progress, he showed us a composition 
 by a man who was deaf and dumb, in praise of 
 Morosofia, who, merely by the use of his eyes and 
 hands, had made an ingenious and high-sounding 
 piece of eloquence, though I confess that the 
 sense was somewhat obscure. We went away 
 filled with admiration for the great Lozzi Pozzi's 
 inventions. 
 
 Having understood that there was an academy 
 in the neighbourhood, in which youths of maturer 
 years were instructed in the fine arts, we were 
 induced to visit it ; but there being a vacation at 
 that time, we could see neither the professors nor 
 students, and consequently could gain little infor- 
 mation of the course of discipline and instruction 
 pursued there. We were, however, conducted to 
 a small menagerie attached to the institution, by 
 its keeper, where the habits and accomplishments 
 of the animals bore strong testimony in favour of 
 the diligence and skill of their teachers. 
 
1G8 
 
 We there saw two game-cocks, which, so far 
 from fighting, (though they had been selected 
 from the most approved breed,) billed and cooed 
 like turtle-doves. There was a large zebra, appa- 
 rently ill-tempered, which showed his anger by 
 running at and butting every animal that came in 
 his way. Two half-grown llamas, which are natu- 
 rally as quiet and timid as sheep, bit each other 
 very furiously, until they foamed at the mouth. 
 And, lastly, a large mastiff made his appearance, 
 walking in a slow, measured gait, with a sleek 
 tortoise-shell cut on his back ; and she, in turn, 
 was surmounted by a mouse, which formed the 
 apex of this singular pyramid. 
 
 The keeper, renin iking our unaffected surprise 
 at the exhibition, asked u.-> if we could now doubt 
 the unlimited force of education, after such a dis- 
 play of the triumph of art over nature. While he 
 was speaking, the mastiff, being jostled by the two 
 llamas still awkwardly worrying each other, turn- 
 ed round so suddenly, that the mouse was dis- 
 lodged from his lofty position, and thrown to the 
 ground ; on seeing which, the cat immediately 
 sprang upon it, with a loud purring noise, which 
 being heard by the dog, he, with a fierce growl, 
 suddenly seized the cat. The llamas, alarmed at 
 
169 
 
 this terrific sound, instinctively ran off, and hav- 
 ing, in their flight, approached the heels of the 
 zebra, he gave a kick, which killed one of them 
 on the spot. 
 
 The keeper, who was deeply mortified at see- 
 ing the fabric he had raised with such indefatiga- 
 ble labour, overturned in a moment, protested 
 that nothing of the sort had ever happened be- 
 fore. To which we replied, by way of consola- 
 tion, that perhaps the same thing might never 
 happen again ; and that, while his art had achiev- 
 ed a conquest over nature, this was only a slight 
 rebellion of nature against art. We then thanked 
 him for his politeness, and took our leave. 
 
 J5 
 
170 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Election of the Numnoonce, or town-constable — 
 Violence of parties — Singular institution of the 
 Syringe Boys — The prize-fighters — Domestic 
 manufactures. 
 
 When we got back to the city, we found an 
 unusual stir and bustle among the citizens, and 
 on inquiring the cause, we understood they were 
 about to elect the town-constable. After taking 
 some refreshment at our lodgings, where we were 
 very kindly received, we again went out, and were 
 hurried along with the crowd, to a large building 
 near the centre of the city. The multitude were 
 shouting and hallooing with great vehemence. 
 The Brahmin remarking an elderly man, who 
 seemed very quiet in the midst of all this ferment, 
 he thought him a proper person to address for 
 information. 
 
 " I suppose," says he, " from the violence of 
 these partisans, they are on different sides in reli- 
 gion or politics ?" 
 
 " Not at all," said the other; " those differen- 
 ces are forgotten at the present, and the ground 
 of the dispute is, that one of the candidates is 
 
171 
 
 tall, and the other is short — one has a large fore- 
 top, and the other is bald. Oh, I forgot ; one has 
 been a schoolmaster, and the other a butcher." 
 
 Curiosity now prompted me to enter into the 
 thickest of the throng; and I had never seen such 
 fury in the maddest contests between old George 
 Clinton and Mr. Jay, or De Witt Clinton and Go- 
 vernor Tompkins, in my native State. They each 
 reproached their adversaries in the coarsest lan- 
 guage, and attributed to them the vilest princi- 
 ples and motives. Our guide farther told us that 
 the same persons, with two others, had been 
 candidates last year, when the schoolmaster pre- 
 vailed ; and, as the supporters of the other two 
 unsuccessful candidates had to choose now be- 
 tween the remaining two, each party was perpe- 
 tually reproaching the other with inconsistency. 
 A dialogue between two individuals of opposite 
 sides, which we happened to hear, will serve as a 
 specimen of the rest. 
 
 " Are you not a pretty fellow to vote for Bald- 
 head, whom you have so often called rogue and 
 blockhead ?■" 
 
 " It becomes you to talk of consistency, in- 
 deed ! Pray, sir, how does it happen that you are 
 now against him, when you were so lately sworn 
 friends, and used to eat out of the same dish?" 
 
172 
 
 " Yes ; but I was the butcher's friend too. I 
 never abused him. You'll never catch me sup- 
 porting a man I have once abused." 
 
 " But I catch you abusing the man you once 
 supported, which is rather worse. The difference 
 between us is this : — you professed to be friendly 
 to both ; I professed to be hostile to both : you 
 stuck to one of your friends, and cast the other 
 off; and I acted the same towards my enemies." 
 A crowd then rushed by, crying " Huzza for the 
 Butcher's knives ! Damn pen and ink — damn the 
 books, and all that read in them ! Butchers' 
 knives and beef for ever !" 
 
 We asked our guide what these men were to 
 gain by the issue of the contest. 
 
 " Nineteenths of them nothing. But a few 
 hope to be made deputies, if their candidates suc- 
 ceed, and they therefore egg on the rest." 
 
 We drew near to the scaffold where the candi- 
 dates stood, and our ears were deafened with the 
 mingled shouts and exclamations of praise and 
 reproach. " You cheated the corporation !" says 
 one. " You killed two black sheep !" says an- 
 other. " You can't read a warrant !" " You let 
 Dondon cheat you !" " You tried to cheat Nin- 
 can !" " You want to build a watch-house !" 
 " You have an old ewe at home now, that you did 
 
173 
 
 not come honestly by I" " You denied your own 
 hand I 1 '— with other ribaldry still more gross and 
 indecent. But the most singular part of the scene 
 was a number of little boys, dressed in black and 
 white, who all wore badges of the parties to which 
 they belonged, and were provided with a syringe, 
 and two canteens, one filled with rose-water, and 
 the other with a black liquid, of a very offensive 
 smell, the first of which they squirted at their 
 favourite candidates and voters, and the last on 
 those of the opposite party. They were drawn 
 up in a line, and seemed to be under regular dis- 
 cipline ; for, whenever the captain of the band 
 gave the word, " Vilti Mindoc !" they discharged 
 the dirty liquid from their syringes ; and when he 
 said " Vilti Goulgoul !" they filled the air with 
 perfume, that was so overpowering as sometimes 
 to produce sickness. The little fellows would, 
 between whiles, as if to keep their hands in, use 
 the black squirts against one another ; but they 
 often gave them a dash of the rose-water at the 
 same time. 
 
 I wondered to see men submit to such indi^- 
 nity ; but was told that the custom had the sanc- 
 tion of time ; that these boys were brought up in 
 the church, and were regularly trained to this 
 business. " Besides," added my informer, " the 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 custom is not without its use ; for it points out 
 the candidates at once to a stranger, and espe- 
 cially him who is successful, those being always 
 the most blackened who are the most popular." 
 But it was amusing to see the ludicrous figure that 
 the candidates and some of the voters made. If 
 you came near them on one side, they were like 
 roses dripping with the morning dew j but on the 
 other, they were as black as chimney sweeps, and 
 more offensive than street scavengers. As these 
 Syringe Boys, or Goulmins, are thus protected by 
 custom, the persons assailed affected to despise 
 them ; but I could ever and anon see some of the 
 most active partisans clapping them on the back, 
 and saying, " Well done, my little fellows ! give 
 it to them again ! You shall have a ginger-cake 
 — and you shall have a new cap," &c. Surely-, 
 thought I, our custom of praising and abusing our 
 public men in the newspapers, is far more rational 
 than this. After the novelty of the scene was over, 
 I became wearied and disgusted with their coarse- 
 ness, violence, and want of decency, and we left 
 them without waiting to see the result of the 
 contest. 
 
 In returning to our lodgings, the Brahmin took 
 me along a quarter of the town in which I had 
 never before been. In a little while we came to 
 
175 
 
 a lofty building, before the gate of which a great 
 crowd were assembled. " This," said my com- 
 panion, " is one of the courts of justice." Anxious 
 to see their modes of proceeding in court, I push- 
 ed through the crowd, followed by the Brahmin, 
 and on entering the building, found myself in a 
 spacious amphitheatre, in the middle of which I 
 beheld, with surprise, several men engaged, hand 
 to hand, in single combat. On asking an expla- 
 nation of my friend, he informed me that these 
 contests were favourite modes of settling private 
 disputes in Morosofia : that the prize-fighters 1 
 saw, hired themselves to any one who conceived 
 himself injured in person, character, or property. 
 " It seems a strange mode of settling legal dis- 
 putes," I remarked, " which determines a ques- 
 tion in favour of a party, according to the strength 
 and wind of his champion." 
 
 " Nor is that all," said the Brahmin, " as the 
 judges assign the victory according to certain 
 rules and precedents, the reasons of which are 
 known only to themselves, if known at all, and 
 which are often sufficiently whimsical — as some- 
 times a small scratch in the head avails more than 
 a disabling blow in the body. The blows too, 
 must be given in the right time, as well as in the 
 right place, or they pass for nothing. In short, of 
 
176 
 
 all those spectators who are present to witness the 
 powers and address of the prize-fighters, not one 
 in a hundred can tell who has gained the victory, 
 until the judges have proclaimed it." 
 
 " I presume," said I, " that the champions who 
 thus expose their persons and lives in the cause 
 of another, are Glonglims ?" 
 
 " There," said he, " you are altogether mista- 
 ken. In the first place, the prize-fighters seldom 
 sustain serious injury. Their weapons do not 
 endanger life ; and as each one knows that his 
 adversary is merely following his vocation, they 
 often fight without animosity. After the contest 
 is over, you may commonly see the combatants 
 walking and talking very sociably together : but 
 as this circumstance makes them a little suspect- 
 ed by the public, they affect the greater rage when 
 in conflict, and occasionally quarrel and fight in 
 downright earnest. No," he continued, " I am 
 told it is a very rare thing to see one of these 
 prize-fighters who is a Glonglim; but most of 
 their employers belong to this unhappy race." 
 
 On looking more attentively, I perceived many 
 of these beings among the spectators, showing, by 
 their gestures, the greatest anxiety for the issue of 
 the contest. They each carried a scrip, or bag, 
 the contents of which they ever and anon gave 
 
177 
 
 to their respective champions, whose wind, it is 
 remarked, is very apt to fail, unless thus assisted. 
 
 Having learnt some farther particulars respect- 
 ing this singular mode of litigation, which would 
 be uninteresting to the general reader, I took my 
 leave, not without secretly congratulating myself 
 on the more rational modes in which justice is 
 administered on earth. 
 
 When we had nearly reached our lodgings, we 
 hetird a violent altercation in the house, and on 
 entering, we found our landlord and his wife en- 
 gaged in a dispute respecting their domestic eco- 
 nomy, and they both made earnest appeals to my 
 companion for the correctness of their respective 
 opinions. The old man was in favour of their 
 children making their own shoes and clothes ; and 
 his wife insisted that it would be better for them 
 to stick to their garden and dairy, with the pro- 
 ceeds of which they could purchase what they 
 wanted. She asserted that they could readily sell 
 all the fruits and vegetables they could raise ; and 
 that whilst they would acquire greater skill by an 
 undivided attention to one thing, they who follow- 
 ed the business of tailors, shoemakers, and seam- 
 stresses, would, in like manner, become more 
 skilful in their employments, and consequently be 
 able to work at a cheaper rate. She farther added, 
 
178 
 
 that spinning and sewing were unhealthy occu- 
 pations ; they would give the girls the habit of 
 stooping, which would spoil their shapes ; and 
 that their thoughts would be more likely to be 
 running on idle and dangerous fancies, when sit- 
 ting at their needles, than when engaged in more 
 active occupations. 
 
 This dame was a very fluent, ready-witted wo- 
 man, and she spoke with the confidence that con- 
 sciousness of the powers of disputation commonly 
 inspires. She went on enlarging on the mischiefs 
 of the practice she condemned, and, by insensible 
 gradations, so magnified them, that at last she 
 clearly made out that there was no surer way of 
 rendering their daughters sickly, deformed, vi- 
 cious, and unchaste, than to set them about ma- 
 king their own clothes. 
 
 After she had ceased, (which she did under a 
 persuasion that she had anticipated and refuted 
 every argument that could be urged in opposition 
 to her doctrine,) the husband, with an emotion of 
 anger that he could not conceal, began to defend 
 his opinion. He said, as to the greater economy 
 of his plan, there could be no doubt ; for although 
 they might, at particular times, make more by 
 gardening than they could save by spinning or 
 jewing, yet there were other times when they 
 
179 
 
 could not till the ground, and when, of course, if 
 they did not sew or spin, they would be idle ; but 
 if they did work, the proceeds would be clear gain. 
 He said he did not wish his daughters to be con- 
 stantly employed in making clothes, nor was it 
 necessary that they should be. A variety of other 
 occupations, equally indispensable, claimed their 
 attention, and would leave but a comparatively 
 small portion of time Tor needlework : that in thus 
 providing themselves with employment at home, 
 they at least saved the time of going backwards 
 and forwards, and were spared some trips to mar- 
 ket, for the sale of vegetables to pay, as would 
 then be necessary, for the work done by others. 
 Besides, the tailor who was most convenient to 
 them, and who, it was admitted, was a very good 
 one, was insolent and capricious ; would some- 
 times extort extravagant prices, or turn them into 
 ridicule ; and occasionally went so far as to set his 
 water-dogs upon them, of which he kept a great 
 number. He declared, that for his part he would 
 incur a little more expense, rather than he would 
 be so imposed upon, and subjected to so much 
 indignity and vexation. 
 
 He denied that sewing would affect his daugh- 
 ters' health, unless, perhaps, they followed it ex- 
 clusively as an occupation ; but, as they would 
 
180 
 
 have it in their power to consult their inclinations 
 and convenience in this matter, they might take 
 it up when the occasion required, and lay it down 
 whenever they found it irksome or fatiguing : that 
 as they themselves were inclined to follow this 
 course, it was a plain proof that the occupation 
 was not unhealthy. He maintained that they 
 would stoop just as much in gardening, and wash- 
 ing and nursing their children, as in sewing; and 
 that we were not such frail or unpliant machines 
 as to be seriously injured, unless we persisted in 
 one set of straight, formal notions, but that we 
 were adapted to variety, and were benefited by it. 
 That as to the practice being favourable to wan- 
 tonness and vice, while he admitted that idleness 
 was productive of these effects, he could not see 
 how one occupation encouraged them more than 
 another. That the tailor, for example, whom he 
 had been speaking of, though purse-proud, over- 
 bearing, and rapacious, was not more immoral or 
 depraved than his neighbours, and had probably 
 less of the libertine than most of them. He admit- 
 ted that evil thoughts would enter the mind in any 
 situation, and could not reasonably be expected 
 to be kept out of his daughters' heads (being, as 
 he said, but women) : yet he conceived such a 
 result as far less probable, if they were suffered to 
 
181 
 
 ramble about in the streets, and to chaffer with 
 their customers, than if they were kept to sedate 
 and diligent employment at home. 
 
 Having, with great warmth and earnestness, 
 used these arguments, he concluded, by plainly 
 hinting to his wife that she had always been the 
 apologist of the tailor, in all their disputes ; and 
 that she could not be so obstinately blind to the 
 irrefragable reasoning he had urged, if she were 
 not influenced by her old hankering after this fel- 
 low, and did not consult his interests in prefer- 
 ence to those of her own family. Upon this 
 remark the old woman took fire, and, in spite of 
 our presence, they both had recourse to direct 
 and the coarsest abuse. 
 
 The Brahmin did not, as I expected, join me 
 in laughing at the scene we had just witnessed ; 
 but, after some musing, observed : " There is 
 much truth in what each of these parties say. I 
 blame them only for the course they take towards 
 each other. Their dispute is, in fact, of a most 
 frivolous and unmeaning character ; for, if the 
 father was to carry his point, the girls would occa- 
 sionally sell the productions of their garden, and 
 pay for making their clothes, or even buy therai 
 ready made. Were the mother, on the other hand 
 16 
 
182 
 
 to prevail, they would still occasionally use their 
 needles, and exercise their taste and skill in sew- 
 ing, spinning, knitting, and the like. Nay," added 
 he, " if you had not been so much engrossed with 
 this angry and indecorous altercation, you might 
 have seen two of them at their needles, in an ad- 
 joining apartment, while one was busy at work in 
 the garden, and another up to the elbows in the 
 soap-suds — all so closely engaged in their several 
 pursuits, that they hardly seemed to know they 
 were the subject of discussion." 
 
 I told the Brahmin that a dispute, not unlike 
 this, had taken place in my own country, a few 
 years since; some of our politicians contending 
 that agricultural labour was most conducive to 
 the national wealth, whilst others maintained 
 that manufacturing industry was equally advan- 
 tageous, wherever it was voluntarily pursued ; — 
 but that the controversy had lately assumed a dif- 
 ferent character — the question now being, not 
 whether manufactures are as beneficial as agri- 
 culture, but whether they deserve extraordinary 
 encouragement, by taxing those who do not give 
 them a preference. 
 
 " That is," said the Brahmin, " as if our land- 
 lady, by way of inducing her daughters to give up 
 
183 
 
 gardening for spinning, were to tell them, if they 
 did not find their new occupation as profitable 
 as the old, she would more than make up the 
 difference out of her own pocket, which, though 
 it might suit the daughters very well, would be a 
 losing business to the family.' 1 
 
J 84 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 Description of the Happy Vcittey — The hues, cus- 
 toms, and manners of the Okalbians — Theory of 
 population — Rent — System of government. 
 
 The Brahmin, who was desirous of showing me 
 what was most remarkable in this country, during 
 the short time we intended to stay, thought this 
 a favourable time to visit Okalbia, or the Happy 
 Valley. The Okalbians are a tribe or nation, who 
 live separated from the rest of the Lunar world,, 
 and whose wise government, prudence, indus- 
 try, and integrity, are very highly extolled by all, 
 though, by what I can learn, they have few imi- 
 tators. They dwell about three hundred miles 
 north of the city of Alamatua, in a fertile valley, 
 which they obtained by purchase about two hun- 
 dred years since, and which is about equal to* 
 twenty miles square, that is, to four hundred 
 square miles. A carriage and four well-broke 
 dogs, was procured for us, and we soon reached 
 the foot of the mountain that encloses the fortu- 
 nate valley, in about fifty-two hours. We then 
 ascended, for about three miles, with far less; 
 
185 
 
 fatigue than I formerly experienced in climbing 
 the Catskill mountains of my native State, and 
 found ourselves on the summit of an extensive 
 ridge, which formed the margin of a vast ellipti- 
 cal basin, the bottom of which presented a most 
 beautiful landscape. The whole surface was like 
 a garden, interspersed with patches of wood, 
 clumps of trees, and houses standing singly or in 
 groupes. A lake, about a mile across, received 
 several small streams, and on its edge was a town, 
 containing about a thousand houses. After enjoy- 
 ing the beauties of the scene for some minutes, 
 we descended by a rough winding road, and en- 
 tered this Lunar Paradise, in about four hours. 
 Along the sides of the highway we travelled, were 
 planted rows of trees, not unlike our sycamores, 
 which afforded a refreshing shade to the traveller ; 
 and commonly a rivulet ran bubbling along one 
 side or the other of the road. 
 
 After journeying about eight miles, we entered 
 a neat, well built town, which contained, as we 
 were informed, about fifteen thousand inhabitants. 
 The Brahmin informed me, that in a time of reli- 
 gious fervour, about two centuries ago, a charter 
 was granted to the founder of a new sect, the 
 Volbins, who had chanced to make converts of 
 16"* 
 
186 
 
 some of the leading men in Morosofia, authorising 
 him and his followers to purchase this valley of 
 the hunting tribe to whom it belonged, and to 
 govern themselves by their own laws. They found 
 no difficulty in making the purchase. It was then 
 used as a mere hunting ground, no one liking to 
 settle in a place that seemed shut out from the 
 rest of the world. At first, the new settlers divided 
 the land equally among all the inhabitants, one of 
 their tenets being, that as there was no difference 
 of persons in the next world, there should be no 
 difference in sharing the good things of this. They 
 tried at first to preserve this equality ; but finding 
 it impracticable, they abandoned it. It is said 
 that after about thirty years, by reason of a differ- 
 ence in their industry and frugality, and of some 
 families spending less than they made, and some 
 more, the number of land owners was reduced to 
 four hundred, and that fifty of these held one half 
 of the whole ; since which time the number of 
 landed proprietors has declined with the popula- 
 tion, though not in the same proportion. As the 
 soil is remarkably fertile, the climate healthy, and 
 the people temperate and industrious, they multi- 
 plied very rapidly until they reached their present 
 numbers, which have been long stationary, and 
 
187 
 
 amount to 150,000, that is, about four hundred to 
 a square mile ; of these, more than one half live 
 in towns and villages, containing from one hun- 
 dred to a thousand houses. 
 
 They have little or no commerce with any other 
 people, the valley producing every vegetable pro- 
 duction, and the mountains every mineral, which 
 they require ; and in fact, they have no foreign 
 intercourse whatever, except when they visit, or 
 are visited from curiosity. Though they have been 
 occasionally bullied and threatened by lawless 
 and overbearing neighbours ; yet, as they can be 
 approached by only a single gorge in the moun- 
 tain, which is always well garrisoned, (and they 
 present no sufficient object to ambition, to com- 
 pensate for the scandal of invading so inoffensive 
 and virtuous a people,) they have never yet been 
 engaged in war. 
 
 I felt very anxious to know how it was that their 
 numbers did not increase, as they were exempt 
 from all pestilential diseases, and live in such abun- 
 dance, that a beggar by trade has never been 
 known among them, and are remarkable for their 
 moral habits. 
 
 " Let us inquire at the fountain-head," said the 
 Brahmin ; and we went to see the chief magis- 
 trate, who received us in a style of unaffected 
 
188 
 
 frankness, which in a moment put us at our ease. 
 After we had explained to him who we were, and 
 answered such inquiries as he chose to make : 
 
 " Sir," said I, through the Brahmin, who act- 
 ed as interpreter, " I have heard much of your 
 country, and I find, on seeing it, that it exceeds 
 report, in the order, comfort, contentment, and 
 abundance of the people. But I am puzzled to 
 find out how it is that your numbers do not in- 
 crease. I presume you marry late in life ?" 
 
 "On the contrary," said he; "every young 
 man marries as soon as he receives his education, 
 and is capable of managing the concerns of a 
 family. Some are thus qualified sooner, and some 
 later." 
 
 " Some occasionally migrate, then?" 
 
 " Never. A number of our young men, indeed, 
 visit foreign countries, but not one in a hundred 
 settles abroad." 
 
 " How, then, do your associates continue sta- 
 tionary ?" 
 
 " Nothing is more easy. No man has a larger 
 family than his land or labour can support, in 
 comfort; and as long as that is the case with every 
 individual, it must continue to be the case with 
 the whole community. We leave the matter to 
 individual discretion. The prudential caution 
 
189 
 
 which is thus indicated, has been taught us by 
 our own experience. We had gone on increasing, 
 under the encouraging influence of a mild system 
 of laws, genial climate, and fruitful soil, until, 
 about a century ago, we found that our numbers 
 were greater than our country, abundant as it is, 
 could comfortably support; and our seasons being 
 unfavourable for two successive years, many of 
 our citizens were obliged to banish themselves 
 from Okalbia ; and their education not fitting 
 them for a different state of society, they suffered 
 severely, both in their comforts and morals. It 
 is now a primary moral duty, enforced by all our 
 juvenile instructors with every citizen, to adapt 
 his family to his means ; and thus a regard which 
 each individual has for his offspring, is the salva- 
 tion of the State. 1 ' 
 
 " And cnn these prudential restraints be gene- 
 rally practised ? What a virtuous people ! Love 
 for one another brings the two sexes together — 
 love for their offspring makes them separate !■" 
 
 " I see," said the magistrate, smiling, " you are 
 under an error. No separation takes place, and 
 none is necessary." 
 
 ** How, then, am I to believe ?" 
 
 " You are to believe nothing," said he, with 
 calm dignity, " which is incompatible with virtue 
 
190 
 
 and propriety. I see that the most important of 
 all sciences — that one on which the well-being 
 and improvement of society mainly depends, — is 
 in its infancy with you. But whenever you be- 
 come as populous as we are, and unite the know- 
 ledge of real happiness with the practice of virtue, 
 you will understand it. It is one of our maxims, 
 that heaven gives wisdom to man in such portions 
 as his situation requires it ; and no doubt it is the 
 same with the people of your earth." 
 
 I did not, after this, push my inquiries farther ; 
 but remarked, aside to the Brahmin, — " I would 
 give a good deal to know this secret, provided it 
 would suit our planet." 
 
 " It is already known there, 11 replied he, " and 
 has been long practised by many in the east : but 
 in the present state of society with you, it might 
 do more harm than good to be made public, by 
 removing one of the checks of licentiousness, 
 where women are so unrestrained as they are 
 with you. 11 
 
 Changing now the subject, I ventured to in- 
 quire how they employed their leisure hours, and 
 whether many did not experience here a weari- 
 some sameness, and a feeling of confinement and 
 restraint. 
 
 " It is true, 1 ' said the magistrate, " men require 
 
191 
 
 variety; but I would not have you suppose he can- 
 not find it here. He may cultivate his lands, im- 
 prove his mind, educate his children ; these are 
 his serious occupations, affording every day some 
 employment that is, at once, new and interesting: 
 and, by way of relaxation, he has music, painting, 
 and sculpture; sailing, riding, conversation, story- 
 telling, and reading the news of what is passing, 
 both in the valley and out of it." 
 
 I asked if they had newspapers. He answered 
 in the affirmative ; and added, that they contained 
 minute details of the births, deaths, marriages, 
 accidents, state of the weather and crops, arbitra- 
 tions, public festivals, inventions, original poetry, 
 and prose compositions. In addition to which, 
 they had about fifty of their most promising young 
 men travelling abroad, who made observations 
 on all that was remarkable in the countries they 
 passed through, which they regularly transmitted 
 once a month to Okalbia. I inquired if they tra- 
 velled at the public expense or their own ? 
 
 " They always pursue some profession or trade, 
 by the profits of which they support themselves. 
 We have nothing but intellect and ingenuity to 
 export; for though our country produces every 
 thing, there is no commodity that we can so well 
 spare. Their talents find them employment every 
 
192 
 
 where ; and the necessity they are under of a labo- 
 rious exertion of these talents, and of submitting 
 to a great deal from those whose customs and 
 manners are not to their taste, and whom they 
 feel inferior to themselves, is a considerable check 
 to the desire to go abroad, so much so, that we 
 hold out the farther inducement of political dis- 
 tinction when they return.' 1 
 
 " What, then! you have ambition among you ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; our institutions have only tem- 
 pered it, and not vainly endeavoured to extin- 
 guish it ; and we find it employment in this way : 
 Of our youthful travellers, those who are most 
 diligent in their vocation ; who give the most use- 
 ful information, and communicate it in the hap- 
 piest manner, are made magistrates, on their re- 
 turn, and sometimes have statues decreed to 
 them. Besides, the name which their conduct or 
 talents procure them abroad, is echoed back to 
 the valley, long before their return, and has much 
 influence in the general estimate of their character. 
 
 "But have you not many more competitors, 
 than you have public offices ?" 
 
 " There are, without doubt, many who desire 
 office; but to manifest their wish, would be one 
 of the surest means of defeating it. We require 
 modesty, (at least in appearance,) moderation 
 
193 
 
 and disinterestedness, and of course, the less 
 pains a candidate takes to show himself off, the 
 better." 
 
 " But have they no friends, who can at once 
 render them this service, and relieve them from 
 the odium of it?" 
 
 " There is, indeed, somewhat of this ; but you 
 must remember, that the highest of our magis- 
 trates has comparatively little power. He has no 
 army, no treasury, no patronage ; he merely exe- 
 cutes the laws. But, as a farther check on the 
 immoderate zeal of friends, the expense of doing 
 this, as well as of maintaining him in office, is 
 defrayed by those who vote for him. There seems, 
 at first view, but little justice in this regulation ; 
 but we think, that as every one cannot have his 
 way, those who carry their point, and have the 
 power, should also bear the burden : besides, in 
 this way the voices of the most generous and dis- 
 interested prevail. We have," he added, "found 
 this the most difficult part of our government. 
 We once thought that the very lively interest ex- 
 cited in the electioneering contests, particularly 
 for that of Gompoo, or chief magistrate, was to 
 be ascribed to the power he possessed ; and we 
 resorted to various expedients to lessen it — such 
 as dividing it among a greater number — requiring 
 17 
 
194 
 
 a quick rotation of office — abridging the powers 
 themselves: but we discovered, that however 
 small the power, the distinction it gave to those 
 who possessed it, was always an object of lively 
 interest with the ambitious, and indeed with the 
 public in general. We have, therefore, enlarged 
 the power, and the term of holding it, and make 
 him who would attain it, purchase it by previous 
 exertion and self-denial : and we farther compel 
 those who favour him, to lose as well as gain. We 
 array the love of money against the love of 
 power ; or rather, one love of power to another. 
 Moreover, as it is only by the civic virtues that 
 our citizens recommend themselves to popular 
 favour, there is nothing of that enthusiasm which 
 military success excites among the natives." 
 
 Our Washington then presented himself to my 
 mind, and for a moment 1 began to question his 
 claim to the unexampled honours bestowed on 
 him by his countrymen, until I recollected that he 
 was as distinguished by his respect for the laws, 
 and his sound views of national policy, as for his 
 military services. 
 
 I then inquired into the occupations and con- 
 dition of those who were without land ; and was 
 told that they were either cultivators of the soil, 
 or practised some liberal or mechanical art; and, 
 
195 
 
 partly owing to the education they receive, and 
 partly from the active competition that exists 
 among them, they are skilful, diligent, and honest. 
 Now and then there are some exceptions, accord- 
 ing to the proverb, that in the best Jield of grain 
 there will be some bad ears. The land-owners 
 sometimes cultivate the soil with their own hands 
 — sometimes with hired labourers — and some- 
 times they rent them for about a third of their 
 produce. The smallest proprietors commonly 
 adopt the first course ; the middling, the second ; 
 and the great landholders the third." 
 
 « But I thought," said I, •* that all the land in 
 the valley was of equal fertility." 
 
 " So it is; but what has that to do with rent?" 
 
 " Sir," said I, " our ablest writers on this sub- 
 ject have lately discovered that there can be no 
 rent where there is not a gradation of soils, such 
 as exists in every country of the earth." 
 
 " I see not," said he, " what could have led 
 them into that error. It is true, if there was in- 
 ferior land, there would be a difference of rent 
 in proportion to the difference of fertility ; and if 
 it was so poor as merely to repay the expense of 
 cultivation, it would yield no rent at all. But 
 surely, if one man makes as much as several con- 
 sume, (and this he can easily do with us,) he will 
 
196 
 
 be able to get much of their labour in exchange 
 for this surplus, which is so indispensable to them, 
 and to get more and more, until the greatest 
 number has come into existence which such sur- 
 plus can support. What they thus give, if the 
 proprietor retains the land himself, you may re- 
 gard as the extraordinary profits of agricultural 
 labour, or rent, if paid to any one to whom he 
 transfers this benefit. This is precisely our pre- 
 sent situation." 
 
 There was no denying this statement of facts-: 
 but I could not help exclaiming, — " Surely there 
 is nothing certain in the universe ; or rather, truth 
 is one thing in the moon, and another thing on 
 the earth." 
 
197 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Farther account of Okalbia — The Field of Roses 
 — ^Curious superstition concerning that flowei — 
 The pleasures of smell traced to association, by 
 a Glonglim philosopher. 
 
 Though I felt some reluctance to abuse the 
 patience of this polite and intelligent magistrate, 
 I could not help making some inquiry about the 
 jurisprudence of his country, and first, what was 
 their system of punishment. 
 
 " We have no capital punishment," says he ; 
 " for, from all we learn, it is not more efficacious in 
 preventing crime, than other punishments which 
 are milder ; and we prefer making the example to 
 offenders a lasting one. But we endeavour to 
 prevent offences, not so much by punishment as 
 by education ; and the few crimes committed 
 among us, bring certain censure on those who 
 have the early instruction of the criminal. Mur- 
 ders are very rare with us; thefts and robbery 
 perhaps still more so. Our ordinary disputes about 
 property, are commonly settled by arbitration, 
 where, as well as in court, each party is permitted 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 to state his case, to examine what witnesses and 
 to ask what questions he pleases." 
 
 " You do not," said I, " examine witnesses 
 who are interested ?" 
 
 " Why not ? The judges even examine the 
 parties themselves." 
 
 I then told him that the smallest direct interest 
 in the issue of the controversy, disqualified a wit- 
 ness with us, from the strong bias it created to 
 misrepresent facts, and even to misconceive them. 
 
 He replied with a smile, — " It seems to me that 
 your extreme fear of hearing falsehood, must 
 often prevent you from ascertaining the truth. It 
 is true, that wherever the interest of a witness is 
 involved, it has an immediate tendency to make 
 him misstate facts : but so would personal ill-will 
 — so would his sympathies — so would any strong 
 feeling. What, then, is your course in these 
 cases?" 
 
 I told him that these objections applied to the 
 credibility, and not to the competency, of wit- 
 nesses, which distinctions of the lawyers I endea- 
 voured to explain to him. 
 
 " Then I think you often exclude a witness who 
 is under a small bias, and admit another who is 
 under a great one. You allow a man to give tes- 
 timony in a case in which the fortune or charac- 
 
199 
 
 ter of his father, brother or child is involved, but 
 reject him in a case in which he is not interested 
 to the amount of a greater sum than he would 
 give to the first beggar he met. Is it not so ?" 
 
 " That, indeed, may be the operation of the 
 rule. But cases of such flagrant inconsistency 
 are very rare; and this rule, like every other, 
 must be tried by its general, and not its partial 
 effects." 
 
 " True ; but your rule must at least be a trou- 
 blesome one, and give rise to a great many nice 
 distinctions, that make it difficult in the applica- 
 tion. All laws are sufficiently exposed to this evil, 
 and we do not wish unnecessarily to increase it. 
 We have, therefore, adopted the plan of allowing 
 either party to ask any question of any witness he 
 pleases, and leave it to the judges to estimate the 
 circumstances which may bias the witness. We, 
 in short, pursue the same course in investigating 
 facts in court that we pursue out of it, when no 
 one forms a judgment until he has first heard 
 what the parties and their friends say on the 
 subject." 
 
 On my return home, I repeated this conversa- 
 tion to a lawyer of my acquaintance, who told me 
 that such a rule of evidence might do for the peo- 
 ple in the moon, but it certainly would not suit 
 
200 
 
 us. I leave the matter to be settled by more com- 
 petent heads than mine, and return to my narra- 
 tive. 
 
 I farther learnt from this intelligent magistrate, 
 that the territory of the Happy Valley, or Okal- 
 bia, is divided into forty-two counties, and each 
 county into ten districts. In each district are 
 three magistrates, who are appointed by the legis- 
 lature. Causes of small value are decided by the 
 magistrates of the district ; those of greater im- 
 portance, by the county courts, composed of all 
 the magistrates of the ten districts ; a few by the 
 court of last court, consisting of seven judges. 
 The legislature consists of two houses, of which 
 the members are elected annually, three from 
 each county for one branch, and one member for 
 the other. No qualification of property is required 
 either to vote, or to be eligible to either house of 
 •the legislature, as they believe that the natural 
 influence of property is sufficient, without adding 
 to that influence by law ; and that the moral 
 effects of education among them, together with 
 a few provisions in their constitution, are quite 
 sufficient to guard against any improper combi- 
 nation of those who have small property. Besides, 
 there are no odious privileges exclusively possess- 
 ed by particular classes of men, to excite the envy 
 
201 
 
 or resentment of the other classes, and induce 
 them to act in concert. 
 
 " Have you, then, no parties ?" said I. 
 
 " Oh yes ; we are not without our political par- 
 ties and disputes ; and we sometimes wrangle 
 about very small matters — such as, what amount 
 of labour shall be bestowed on the public roads — 
 the best modes of conducting our schools and 
 colleges — the comparative merits of the candi- 
 dates for office, or the policy of some proposed 
 change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of 
 very combustible materials, and may be kindled 
 as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, 
 in the right place, as when within reach of a 
 great conflagration." 
 
 The women appeared here to be under few 
 restraints. I understood that they were taught, 
 like our sex, all the speculative branches of know- 
 ledge, but that they were more especially instruct* 
 ed, by professed teachers, in cookery, needlework, 
 and every sort of domestic economy ; as were the 
 young men in the occupations which require 
 strength and exposure. They have a variety of 
 public schools, and some houses for public fes- 
 tivals, but no public hospitals or almshouses} 
 whatever, the few cases of private distress or 
 
202 
 
 misfortune being left for relief to the merits of the 
 sufferer and the compassion of individuals. 
 
 After passing a week among this singular and 
 fortunate people, whom we every where found 
 equally amiable, intelligent, and hospitable, we 
 returned to Alamatua in the same way that we 
 had come ; that is, in a light car, drawn by four 
 large mastiffs. When we had recovered from the 
 fatigues of the journey, and I had carefully com- 
 mitted to paper all that I had learnt of the Okal- 
 bians, the Brahmin and I took a walk towards a 
 part of the suburbs which I had not yet seen, and 
 where some of the literati of his acquaintance 
 resided. The sun appeared to be not more than 
 two hours high (though, in fact, it was more than 
 fifty); the sky was without a cloud, and a fresh 
 breeze from the mountains contributed to make it 
 like one of the most delightful summer evenings 
 of a temperate climate. 
 
 We carelessly rambled along, enjoying the 
 balmy freshness of the air, the picturesque sce- 
 nery of the neighbouring mountains, the beauty 
 or fragrance of some vegetable productions, and 
 the oddity of others, until, having passed through 
 a thick wood, we came to an extensive plain, 
 which was covered with rose-bushes. The queen 
 

 20J 
 
 of flowers here appeared under every variety of 
 colour, size, and species — red, white, black, and 
 yellow — budding, full-blown, and half-blown ; — 
 some with thorns, and some without; some odour- 
 less, and others exhaling their unrivalled perfume 
 with an overpowering sweetness. I was about to 
 pluck one of these flowers, (of which I have 
 always been particularly fond,) when a man, 
 whom I had not previously observed, stepping up 
 behind me, seized my arm, and asked me if I knew 
 what I was doing. He told us that the roses of 
 this field, which is called Gulgal, were deemed 
 sacred, and were not allowed to be gathered with- 
 out the special permission of the priests, under a 
 heavy penalty; and that he was one of those 
 whose duty it was to prevent the violation of the 
 law, and to bring the offenders to punishment. 
 
 The Brahmin, having diverted himself a while 
 with my surprise and disappointment, then in- 
 formed me, that the rose had ever been regarded 
 in Morosofia, as the symbol of female purity, deli- 
 cacy, and sweetness; which notion had grown 
 into a popular superstition, that whenever a mar- 
 riage is consummated on the earth, one of these 
 flowers springs up in the moon; and that in co- 
 lour, shape, size, or other property, it is a fit type 
 
204 
 
 of the individual whose change of state is thus 
 commemorated. 
 
 " What, father," said I, " could have given rise 
 to so strange an opinion?" 
 
 " I know not," said he ; " but I have heard it 
 thus explained : — That the roses generally spring 
 up, as well as blow, in the course of their long 
 nights, during which the earth's resplendent disc 
 is the most conspicuous object in the heavens; 
 which two facts stand, in the opinion of the mul- 
 titude, in the relation of cause and effect. Attri- 
 buting, then, the symbolical character of the rose 
 to its tutelary planet, they regard the earth in the 
 same light as the ancients did the chaste Diana, 
 and believe that she plants this her favourite 
 flower in the moon, whenever she loses a votary. 
 The priesthood encourage this superstition, as 
 they have grafted on it some mystical rites, which 
 add to their power and profit, and which one of 
 our Pundits thinks has a great resemblance to the 
 Eleusinian mysteries. There is, however, my dear 
 Atterley, little satisfaction in tracing the origin of 
 vulgar superstitions. They grow up like a strange 
 plant in a forest, without our being able to tell 
 how the seed found its way there. It is generally 
 believed in the east, that the moon, at particular 
 
203 
 
 periods of her revolution round the earth, has a 
 great influence in causing rain ; though every one 
 must see, that, notwithstanding such influence 
 must be the same in every part of the earth, it is 
 invariably fair in one place, at the very time that 
 it is rainy in another. Nay, we may safely aver 
 that there is not a day, nor an hour, in the year, 
 in which it is not dry and rainy, cloudy and clear, 
 windy and calm, in hundreds of places at once." 
 
 I told the Brahmin that the same opinion pre- 
 vailed in my country. That the vulgar also be- 
 lieve the moon, according to its age, to have 
 particular effects on the flesh of slaughtered ani- 
 mals ; and that all sailors distinguish between a 
 wet and a dry day, according to the position of 
 the crescent. 
 
 We then inquired of the warden of this flowery 
 plain, if he had ever remarked any difference in 
 the number of roses which sprung up in a given 
 period of time. He said he thought they were 
 more numerous about five and twenty or thirty 
 years ago, than he had ever seen them before or 
 since. With that exception, he said, the number 
 appeared to be nearly the same every year. 
 
 The Brahmin happening to be in one of those 
 pleasant moods which are occasionally experi- 
 enced by amiable tempers, even when under the 
 18 
 
206 
 
 pressure of sorrow and age, now amused himself 
 in pointing out the flowers which probably repre- 
 sented the different nations of the earth ; and 
 when he saw any one remarkably small, pale and 
 delicate, he insisted that it belonged to his own 
 country; which point, however, I, not yielding to 
 him in nationality, warmly contested. I would 
 here remark, that as the rose is called gal in the 
 Persian language and the ancient Sanscrit, the 
 name of this field furnished another argument in 
 support of the Brahmin's hypothesis of the origin 
 of the moon. 
 
 While thus oblivious of the past, and reckless 
 of the future, we were enjoying the present mo- 
 ment in this badinage, and I was extolling the 
 odour of the rose, as beyond every other grateful 
 to the olfactory nerves of man, a lively, flippant 
 little personage came up, and accosted the Brah- 
 min with the familiarity of an acquaintance. My 
 companion immediately introduced me to him, 
 and at the same time gave me to understand that 
 this was the great Reffei, one of the most distin- 
 guished literati of the country. Although his eye 
 was remarkably piercing, I perceived in it some- 
 what of the wildness which always characterizes 
 a Glonglim, He was evidently impatient for dis- 
 cussion; and having informed himself of the sub- 
 
207 
 
 ject of my rhapsody when he joined our party, he 
 vehemently exclaimed, — " I am surprised at your 
 falling in with that popular prejudice; while it is 
 easy to show, that but for some feeling of love, or 
 pity, or admiration, with which the rose happens 
 to be associated — some past pleasure which it 
 brings to your recollection, or some future plea- 
 sure which it suggests, — any other flower would 
 be equally sweet. You see the rose a very beau- 
 tiful flower; and you have been accustomed, 
 whenever you saw and felt its beauty, to perceive, 
 at the same time, a certain odour. The beauty 
 and the odour thus become associated in your 
 mind, and the smell brings along with it the plea- 
 sure you feel in looking at it. But the chief part 
 of the gratification you receive from smelling a 
 rose, arises from some past scene of delight of 
 which it reminds you ; as, of the days of your in- 
 nocence and childhood, when you ran about the 
 garden — or when you were decorated with nose- 
 gays — or danced round a may-pole, (this is rather 
 a free translation) — or presented a bunch of flow- 
 ers to some little favourite." He said a great deal 
 more on the subject, and spoke so prettily and 
 ingeniously, as almost to make a convert of me; 
 when, on bringing my nose once more to the 
 
208 
 
 flower, I found in it the same exquisite fragrance 
 as ever. 
 
 " Why do we like," he continued, " the smell 
 of a beef-steak, or of a cup of tea, except for the 
 pleasure we receive from their taste ?" 
 
 I mentioned, as an exception to his theory, the 
 codfish, which is esteemed a very savoury dish by 
 my countrymen, but which no one ever regarded 
 as very fragrant. But he repelled my objection 
 by an ingenious hypothesis, grounded on certain 
 physiological facts, to show that this supposed 
 disagreeable smell was also the effect of some 
 early associations. I then mentioned to him assa- 
 f ootid a, the odour of which I believed was univer- 
 sally odious. He immediately replied, that we 
 are always accustomed to associate with this drug, 
 the disagreeable ideas of sickness, female weak- 
 ness, hysterics, affectation, &c. Unable to conti- 
 nue the argument, I felt myself vanquished. I 
 again stooped to the flower, and as I inhaled its 
 perfume, " Surely,' 1 said I to myself, " this rose 
 would be sweet if I were to lose my memory alto- 
 gether :" but recollecting the great Reffei's argu- 
 ment, I mentally added thanks to divine philoso- 
 phy, which always corrects our natural prejudices^ 
 
209 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Atterley goes to the great monthly fair — Its vari- 
 ous exhibitions; difficulties — Preparations to 
 leave the Moon — Curiosities procured by Atter- 
 ley — Regress to the Earth. 
 
 The philosopher, not waiting to enjoy the tri- 
 umph of victory, abruptly took his leave, and we, 
 refreshed and delighted with our walk, returned 
 home. Our landlord informed us that we had 
 arrived in good time to attend the great fair, or 
 market, which regularly takes place a little before 
 the sun sinks below the horizon. Having taken 
 a short repast, while the Brahmin called on one 
 of his acquaintance, I sallied forth into the street, 
 and soon found myself in the bustling throng, 
 who were hastening to this great resort of the 
 busy, the idle, the knavish, and the gay; some in 
 pursuit of gain, and some of pleasure ; whilst 
 others again, without any settled purpose, were 
 carried along by the vague desire of meeting 
 with somewhat to relieve them from the pain of 
 idleness. 
 
 The fair was held in a large square piece of 
 18* 
 
210 
 
 ground in one of the suburbs, set apart for that 
 purpose; and on each of its four sides a long low 
 building, or rather roof, supported on massy white 
 columns, extended about six hundred yards in 
 length, and was thirty yards wide. Immediately 
 within t\>\< arcade were arranged the finer kinds of 
 merchandise, fabrics of cotton or silk, and articles 
 of jewelry, cutlery, porcelain, and glass. On the 
 outside were provisions of every kind, vegetable 
 and animal, flesh, fish, and fowl, as well as the 
 coarser manufactures. At no great distance from 
 this hollow square, (which was used exclusively 
 for buying and selling,) might be seen an infinite 
 variety of persons, collected in groupes, all en- 
 gaged in some occupation or amusement, accord- 
 ing to their several tastes and humours. Here a 
 party of young men were jumping, or wrestling, 
 or shooting at a mark with cross-bows. There, 
 girls and boys were dancing to the sound of a 
 pipe, or still smaller children were playing at mar- 
 bles, or amusing themselves with the toys they 
 had just purchased. Not far from these, a quack 
 from one scaffold was descanting on the virtues 
 of his medicines, whilst a preacher from another 
 was holding forth to the graver part of the crowd, 
 the joys and terrors of another life ; and yet far- 
 ther on, a motley groupe were listening to a blind 
 
211 
 
 beggar, who was singing to the music of a sort of 
 rude guitar. Here and there curtains, hanging 
 from a slight frame of wood-work, veiled a small 
 square from the eyes of all, except those who paid 
 a nail for admittance. Some of these curtained 
 boxes contained jugglers — some tumblers — some 
 libidinous pictures — and others again, strange 
 birds, beasts, and other animals. I observed that 
 none of the exhibitions were as much frequented 
 as these booths ; and I was told that the corpora- 
 tion of the city derived from them a considerable 
 revenue. Amidst such an infinite variety of ob- 
 jects, my attention was so distracted that it could 
 not settle down upon any one, and I strolled 
 about without object or design. 
 
 When I had become more familiar with this 
 mixed multitude of sights and sounds, 1 endea- 
 voured to take a closer survey of some of the 
 objects composing the medley. The first thing 
 which attracted my particular notice, was a pro- 
 fusion of oaths and imprecations, which proceed- 
 ed from one of the curtained booths. I paid the 
 admittance money to a well-dressed man, of 
 smooth, easy manners, and entered. I found there 
 several parties paired off, and engaged at differ- 
 ent games ; but, like the rest of the bystanders, I 
 felt myself most strongly attracted towards the 
 
212 
 
 two who were betting highest. One of these was 
 an elderly man, of a tall stature, in a plain dress ; 
 the other was a short man, in very costly apparel, 
 and some years younger. For a long time the 
 scales of victory seemed balanced between them ; 
 but at length the tall man, who had great self- 
 possession, and who played with consummate 
 skill, won the game : soon after which he rose up, 
 and making a graceful, respectful bow to the rest 
 of the company, he retired. Not being able to 
 catch his eye, so intent was he on his game, I felt 
 some curiosity to know whether he was a Glon- 
 glim ; but could not ascertain the fact, as some of 
 whom the Brahmin inquired, said that he was, 
 while others maintained that he was not. His 
 adversary, however, evidently belonged to that 
 class, and, when flushed with hope, reminded me 
 of the feather-hunter. At first he endeavoured, 
 by forced smiles, to conceal his rage and disap- 
 pointment. He then bit his lips with vexation, 
 and challenged one of the bystanders to play for 
 a smaller stake. Fortune seemed about to smile 
 on him on this occasion ; but one of the company, 
 who appeared to be very much respected by the 
 rest, detected the little man in some false play, 
 and publicly exposing him, broke up the game. I 
 understood afterwards, that before the fair was 
 
213 
 
 over, the gamester avenged himself for this injury 
 in the other's blood : that he then returned to the 
 fair, secretly entered another gambling booth, 
 where he betted so rashly, that he soon lost not 
 only his patrimonial estate, which was large, but 
 his acquired wealth, which was much larger. Hav- 
 ing lost all his property, and even his clothes, he 
 then staked and lost his liberty, and even his 
 teeth, which were very good; and he will thus be 
 compelled to live on soups for the rest of his life. 
 I saw several other matches played, in which 
 great sums were betted, great skill was exhibit- 
 ed, and occasionally much unfairness practised. 
 There was one man in the crowd, whose extraor- 
 dinary good fortune I could not but admire. He 
 went about from table to table, sometimes bettinor 
 high and sometimes low, but was generally suc- 
 cessful, until he had won as much as he could 
 fairly carry ; after which he went out, and amused 
 himself at a puppet-show, and the stall of a cake- 
 woman, with whom he had formerly quarrelled, 
 but who now, when she learnt his success, was 
 obsequiously civil to him. I did not see that he 
 manifested superior skill, but still he was success- 
 ful ; and in his last great stake with a young, but 
 not inexpert player, he won the game, though the 
 chances were three to two against him. " Surely,'* 
 
214 
 
 thought I, " fortune rules the destinies of man in 
 the moon as well as on the earth." 
 
 On looking now at my watch, I found that I 
 had been longer a witness of these trials of skill 
 and fortune, than I had been aware ; and on leav- 
 ing the booth, perceived that the sun had sunk 
 behind the western mountains, and that the earth 
 began to beam with her nocturnal splendour. 
 Those who had come from a distance, were al- 
 ready hurrying back with their carts ; and here 
 and there light cars, of various forms and colours, 
 and drawn by dogs, were conveying those away 
 whose object had been amusement. Some were 
 snatching a hasty meal ; and a few, by their quiet 
 air, seemed as if they meant to continue on the 
 spot as long as the regulations permit, after sun- 
 set, which is about twenty of our hours. I found 
 the Brahmin at home when I returned, and I felt 
 as much pleased to see him, as if we had not 
 seen each other for many months. 
 
 As the shades of night approached, my anxiety 
 to return to my native planet increased, and I 
 urged my friend to lose no time in preparing for 
 our departure. We were soon afterwards inform- 
 ed that a man high in office, and renowned for 
 his political sagacity, proposed to detain us, on 
 the ground that when such voyages as ours were 
 
215 
 
 shown to be practicable, the inhabitants of the 
 earth, who were so much more numerous than 
 those of the moon, might invade the latter with a 
 large army, for the purposes of rapine and con- 
 quest. We farther learnt that this opinion, which 
 was at first cautiously circulated in the higher cir- 
 cles, had become more generally known, and was 
 producing a strong sensation among the people. 
 
 The Brahmin immediately presented himself 
 before the council of state, to remove the impres- 
 sion. He pointed out to them the insurmounta- 
 ble obstacles to such an invasion, physical and 
 moral. He urged to them that the nations of the 
 earth felt so much jealousy and ill-will towards 
 one another, that they never cordially co-operated 
 in any enterprise for their common interest or 
 glory ; and that if any one nation were to send an 
 army into the moon, such a scheme of ambition 
 would afford at once a temptation and pretext for 
 its neighbours to invade it. That his country had 
 not the ability, and mine had not the inclination, 
 to attack the liberties of any other : so far from 
 that, he informed them, on my authority, that we 
 were in the habit of sending teachers abroad, to 
 instruct other nations in the duties of religion, 
 morals, and humanity. He entered into some 
 calculations, to show that the project was also 
 
216 
 
 impracticable on account of its expense ; and, 
 lastly, insisted that if all other difficulties were 
 removed, \vc should find it impossible to convince 
 the people of the earth that we had really been to 
 the moon. I have since found that the Brahmin 
 was more right in his last argument, than I then 
 believed possible. 
 
 I am not able to say what effect these represen- 
 tations of the Brahmin would have produced, if 
 they had not been taken up and enforced by the 
 political rival of him who had first opposed our 
 departure ; but by his powerful aid they finally 
 triumphed, and we obtained a formal permission 
 to leave the moon whenever we thought proper. 
 
 As we meant to return in the same machine in 
 which we came, we were not long in preparing 
 for our voyage. We proposed to set out about 
 the middle of the night ; and we passed the 
 chief part of the interval in making visits of cere- 
 mony, and in calling on those who had shown us 
 civility. I endeavoured also, to collect such arti- 
 cles as I thought would be most curious and rare 
 in my own country, and most likely to produce 
 conviction with those who might be disposed to 
 question the fact of my voyage. I was obliged, 
 however, to limit myself to such things as were 
 neither bulky nor weighty, the Brahmin thinking' 
 
217 
 
 that after we had taken in our instruments and the 
 necessary provisions, we could not safely take 
 more than twenty or thirty pounds in addition. 
 
 Some of my lunar curiosities, which I thought 
 would be most new and interesting to my coun- 
 trymen, have proved to be very familiar to our 
 men of science. This has been most remarkably 
 the case with my mineral specimens. Of the 
 leaves and flowers of above seventy plants, which 
 I brought, more than forty are found on the earth., 
 and several of these grow in my native State. 
 With the insects I have been more successful : 
 but some of these, as well as of the plants, I am 
 assured, are found on the coasts of the Pacific, 
 or in the islands of that ocean ; which fact, by 
 the way, gives a farther support to the Brahmin's 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Besides the productions of nature that I have 
 mentioned, I procured some specimens of their 
 cloth, a few light toys, a lady's turban decorated 
 with cantharides, a pair of slippers with heavy 
 metallic soles, which are used there for walking 
 in a strong wind, and by the dancing girls to pre- 
 vent their jumping too high. As this metal, which 
 gravitates to the moon, is repelled from the earth., 
 these slippers assist the wearer here in springing 
 from the ground as much as they impeded it in 
 19 
 
•218 
 
 the moon, and therefore I have lent them to Ma- 
 dame , of the New-York Theatre, who is 
 
 thus enabled to astonish and delight the spectators 
 with her wonderful lightness and agility. 
 
 But there is nothing that I have brought which 
 1 prize so highly as a few of their manuscripts. 
 The Lunarians write as we do, from left to right : 
 but when their words consist of more than one 
 syllable, all the subsequent syllables are put over 
 the first, so that" what we call long words, they call 
 high ones: which mode of writing makes them 
 more striking to the eye. This peculiarity has. 
 perhaps, had some effect in giving their writers 
 a magniloquence of style, something like that 
 which so laudably characterises our Fourth of 
 July Orations and Funeral Panegyrics : that com- 
 position being thought the finest in which tin- 
 words stand highest. Another advantage of this 
 mode of writing is, that they can crowd more in 
 a small page, so that a long discourse, if it is also 
 very eloquent, may be compressed in a single- 
 page. I have left some of the manuscripts with 
 the publisher of this work, for the gratification of 
 the public curiosity. 
 
 Having taken either respectful or affectionate 
 leave of all, and got every thing in readiness, on 
 the 20th day of August, 1S25, about midnight we 
 
219 
 
 again entered our copper balloon, if I may so 
 speak, and rose from the moon with the same 
 velocity as we had formerly ascended from the 
 earth. Though 1 experienced somewhat of my 
 former sensations, when I again found myself oft" 
 the solid ground, yet I soon regained my self-pos- 
 session ; and, animated with the hope of seeing 
 my children and country, with the past success of 
 our voyage, and (I will not disguise it,) with the 
 distinction which I expected it would procure me 
 from my countrymen, I was in excellent spirits- 
 The Brahmin exhibited the same mild equanimity 
 as ever. 
 
 As the course of our ascent was now less inclin- 
 ed from the vertical line than before, in proportion 
 as the motion of the moon on its axis, is slower 
 than that of the earth, we for some hours could 
 see the former, only by the light reflected from 
 our planet; and although the objects on the moon's 
 surface were less distinct, they appeared yet more 
 beautiful in my eyes than they had done in the 
 glare of day. The difference, however, may be 
 in part attributed to my being now in a better 
 frame of mind for enjoying the scene. As out- 
 distance increased, the face of the moon became 
 of a lighter and more uniform tint, until at length 
 it looked like one vast lake of melted silver, with 
 
220 
 
 here and there small pieces of greyish dross float- 
 ing on it. After contemplating this lovely and 
 magnificent spectacle for about an hour, I turned 
 to the Brahmin, and reminded him of his former 
 promise to give me the history of his early life. 
 He replied, " as you have seen all that you can 
 see of the moon, and the objects of the earth are 
 yet too indistinct to excite much interest, I am 
 not likely to have a more suitable occasion ;" and 
 after a short pause, he began in the way that the 
 reader may see in the next chapter. 
 
22J 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Brahmin gives Atterley a history of his life. 
 
 " I have already informed you that I was born 
 at Benares, which, as you know, is a populous- 
 city on the banks of the Ganges, and the most 
 celebrated seat of Hindoo science and literature. 
 My father was a priest of Vishun, of a high rank : 
 and as his functions required him to live within 
 the precincts of the Pagoda, he was liberall} 
 maintained out of its ample revenues. I was his 
 only son, and according to the usage of our 
 country, was destined to the same holy calling. 
 At an early age I was put under a private tutor, 
 and then sent to one of the schools attached to 
 the Pagoda. Upon what little matters, my dear 
 Atterley, do our fortunes, and even our characters 
 depend ! Had I been sent to another school, the 
 whole destiny of my life would have been changed. 
 
 " I was in my twelfth year when I entered this 
 school, which contained from thirty to forty boys 
 about my age. The cleverest of these was Baity 
 Mahu, who, like myself, belonged to the higher 
 order of Brahmins. He took the lead, not only 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 in die exercises within the school, but in all the 
 sports and pastimes out of it. Nature, however, 
 had not been equally kind to him in temper and 
 disposition. He was restless, ambitious, proud, 
 vindictive, and implacable. He could occasion- 
 ally, too, practise cunning and deception; although 
 anger and violence were more congenial to his 
 nature. 
 
 " It soon appeared that I was to be his rival in 
 ihe school, and from that moment he cordially 
 hated me. The praises that hud previously been 
 lavished on him by the teacher, were now shared 
 by me, and most of the boys secretly rejoiced to 
 see his proud spirit humbled. In our sports I was 
 also his successful competitor. Nature had given 
 me an excellent constitution ; and though I had 
 not a very robust frame, I could boast of great 
 agility and flexibility of limbs. When the sun 
 had descended behind the mountain which screen- 
 ed our play-ground from his evening rays, we 
 commonly amused ourselves in foot-races, and 
 other pastimes, of which running was an impor- 
 tant part. In this exercise I had no equal. I 
 could also jump higher and farther than any boy 
 in school, except one, and that one was not Baity 
 Main:. 
 
 '• His ill-will was not slow in manifesting itself. 
 
223 
 
 He took every occasion of contradicting me : 
 sometimes indulged in sly sneers at my expense, 
 and now and then even attempted to turn me 
 into open ridicule. I always replied with spirit : 
 but I found such contests as disagreeable to me 
 as they were new. One evening, under the pre- 
 text that I had purposely jostled him in running, 
 he struck me, and we fought. Although he was 
 probably stronger than I, as he was heavier and 
 older, my suppleness enabled me to get the better 
 of him in a wrestle ; and I got him under me, 
 when the master, attracted by the shouts of the 
 boys, made his appearance. He separated and 
 reproved us, and sent us off in disgrace to our 
 respective rooms. From that time Baity Mahu 
 treated me with more outward respect than be- 
 fore ; but I believe he hated me with more ran- 
 cour than ever. 
 
 " I had now become the general favourite of 
 the boys. The school was, indeed, divided into 
 parties, but mine was much the strongest ; and of 
 those who adhered to my rival, very few seemed 
 cordially to dislike me. Though this state of 
 things was very annoying to me, it proved advan- 
 tageous in one respect, as it made me more dili- 
 gent in my studies, lest I should furnish my rival 
 with an occasion of triumphing over me ; so that 
 
224 
 
 I owe a part of what I gained to the enmity of 
 my rival. 
 
 " When I had reached my sixteenth year, I was 
 removed to the college in Benares. This is com- 
 monly a very interesting event in the life of a 
 youth, as it reminds him that he is drawing near 
 the period of manhood, and leaves him more a 
 master of his actions. But on the present occa- 
 sion my pleasure had two drawbacks : I could 
 not but feel the contrast between the warm and 
 confiding attachment of my late school-fellows, 
 and the coldness and reserve of my new compa- 
 nions. Yet the most disagreeable circumstance 
 was, that I here met with my former rival, Bait} 
 Mahu. He had entered the college about a 
 month before me, and, aware of my intention, had 
 spared no pains, as I afterwards learnt, of preju- 
 dicing the students against me. 
 
 " After a few months, however, our relative 
 standing was the same here as it had been at the 
 school. I gradually overcame the prejudices of 
 the students, and gained their good will, while he 
 was always giving offence by his meddlesome dis- 
 position and overbearing manners: yet his talents 
 and force of character always procured him a few 
 followers, whom he managed as he pleased. 01 
 their aid he made use to gratify his malevolence 
 
225 
 
 towards me, for this feeling had grown with his 
 growth, and now seemed to be the master passion 
 of his breast. I was able to trace the result of 
 their machinations every where. Sometimes it 
 was intimated to the teachers that I had been 
 assisted in my exercises ; at others, that I had 
 infringed the college rules, or had put false reports 
 in circulation, or had neglected some of the many 
 ceremonies required by our religion. This was 
 their favourite, as well as the most efficient mode 
 of attack, as in these respects there was some 
 colour for their accusation. 
 
 " In my early childhood I had been spared, by 
 the tenderest of mothers, from many of the ablu- 
 tions practised by the Hindoos, under the belief 
 that they would be injurious to my constitution, 
 which, though healthy, had never been robust. A 
 foundation was thus laid with me for habitual 
 remissness in these ceremonies ; and after I grew 
 up, I persuaded myself that they were of less im- 
 portance than they were deemed by my country- 
 men. My chief delight had ever been in books ; 
 and although, when engaged in active pursuits, I 
 took a lively interest in them for the time, I always 
 returned to my first love with unabated ardour. 
 
 " Some of these accusations, being utterly 
 groundless, I was able to disprove ; but the few 
 
226 
 
 that were true I endeavoured to excuse, and thus., 
 by their admission, credit was procured for their 
 most unfounded calumny. These petty trans- 
 gressions, (for I cannot even now regard them as 
 sins,) industriously reported and artfully exagge- 
 rated, did me lasting injury with all the most 
 pious of our caste. The charitable portion, in- 
 deed, were merely estranged from me ; but the 
 more bigoted part began to regard me with aver- 
 sion and horror. 
 
 " In one of our vacations, my father allowed 
 me to visit a brother of his, who lived in the coun- 
 try, about thirty miles from Benares. My uncle 
 had two sons, of nearly my own age, and several 
 daughters. With the former I rode, played chess, 
 and engaged in such sports as are not forbidden 
 to my profession; but my female cousins I seldom 
 saw, as they rarely left their Zenana, into which I 
 was not permitted to enter. I was of an age to 
 be desirous of becoming better acquainted with 
 my female cousins, especially after I learnt that 
 they then had as guests, a lady and her daughter, 
 who had come to pass some weeks here during 
 the absence of her husband, then employed in 
 some public mission to Calcutta. But it was only 
 now and then that I had been able to catch a 
 transient and distant view of these females, dur 
 
227 
 
 ing the first week after my arrival ; and the little I 
 saw, served but to increase my curiosity. Chance, 
 however, soon afforded me the means of gratify- 
 ing it. 
 
 "An important festival in our calendar was now 
 approaching, and preparations were made to cele- 
 brate it in various modes, and, amongst others, by 
 a fight between a royal tiger and an elephant. 
 For several days all was bustle and confusion in 
 my uncle's family. Howdahs, newly gilded and 
 painted, were provided for the elephants — new 
 caparisons for the horses — new liveries for the 
 attendants — cloth and silk, of the richest dyes 
 and hues, united with a profusion of gold and sil- 
 ver ornaments, to dazzle the eye with their varied 
 splendour. This was one of those exhibitions, 
 which those who were intended for the priesthood, 
 were prohibited from attending. I confess, when 
 I witnessed these showy and costly preparations, 
 and pictured to myself the magnificent scene for 
 which they were intended — those formidable ani- 
 mals contending in mortal conflict — the thou- 
 sands of gaily dressed spectators, gazing in 
 breathless anxiety, — I repined at my lot, and re- 
 gretted I had not been born in a condition which, 
 though of less dignity, would not have cut me off 
 from some of the most exquisite pleasures of life. 
 
228 
 
 u At length the important day arrived, and I 
 found my mortification so acute, that I determin- 
 ed to withdraw myself, as much as 1 could, from 
 a scene that I could not witness without pain. 
 Among my acquirements at college, was a know- 
 ledge of your language ; and I had now begun to 
 take the liveliest interest in its beautiful fictions, 
 which I greatly preferred to ours, as being more 
 true to nature, and as exhibiting women in cha- 
 racters at once lovely, pure, and elevated. I was 
 then reading " The Vicar of Wakefield, 11 and had 
 reached the middle of that interesting tale, on the 
 morning of the festival, when my tranquillity was 
 interrupted in the way I have mentioned. Ac- 
 cordingly, taking my book and English diction- 
 ary, I retired to a small summer-house at the foot 
 of the garden, and determined to remain there 
 till the cavalcade had set out. It was some time 
 before I could fix my attention on what I read ; 
 but after a while, the interest the book had pre- 
 viously excited returned, and I became at length 
 so engrossed by the incidents of the story, as to 
 forget the festival, the procession, the tiger, and 
 the elephant, as much as if they had never before 
 entered my head. 
 
 " After some hours passed in this intellectual 
 banquet, 1 waked from my day dream, and 
 
•229 
 
 f thought again of the spectacle with a feeling 
 bordering on indifference. I walked towards the 
 house, where all appeared to be still and silent as 
 a desert. I entered it, and of the forty or fifty 
 menials belonging to it, not one was to be seen. 
 Those who were not in attendance on the family, 
 had sought some respite from their ordinary la- 
 bours. The Zenana then caught my eye, and I 
 felt irresistibly impelled to enter it. 1 used great 
 caution, however, looking around me in every 
 direction as I proceeded there. I found the same 
 silence and desertion as in the other parts of the 
 mansion. I passed through a sitting-room into a 
 long gallery, with which the bed-chambers of the 
 ladies communicated. The doors were all open;, 
 and the whole interior of their apartments exhi- 
 bited so strange a medley of unseemly objects., 
 and such utter disorder, as materially to affect my 
 opinion of female delicacy, and to damp my de- 
 sire of becoming acquainted with my cousins, I 
 passed on, with a feeling of disappointment bor- 
 dering on disgust, when I came to a room which 
 went far to redeem the character of the sex in my 
 estimation. Here all was neatness and propriety : 
 every thing was either in place, or only enough 
 out of it to indicate the recent occupation of the 
 room, or to show the taste or talent of the occn- 
 20 
 
230 
 
 pant ; such as a book left half open at one end 
 of an ottoman, and a piece of embroidery at the 
 other. The flowers too, which decorated the 
 room, showed by their freshness that they had not 
 long left their beds. I could not help stopping to 
 survey a scene which accorded so well with my 
 previous notions of female refinement. At the 
 end of the gallery was a veranda, facing the east, 
 and surrounded by lattices. In this were a num- 
 ber of flower-pots, arranged with the same air of 
 neatness and taste as had been conspicuous in the 
 chamber. I entered it, for the purpose of looking 
 into the flower-garden, with which it communi- 
 cated ; and on approaching the lattice, I saw, 
 seated in an alcove not far from the veranda, a 
 face and form that struck me as being the most 
 beautiful I had ever beheld. I remained for some 
 time riveted to the spot, but soon found myself 
 irresistibly impelled to get a nearer view of the 
 lovely object. With as light a step and as little 
 noise as possible, I descended into the garden 
 from the veranda, and approaching the alcove on 
 the side where its foliage was thickest, I found 
 that the beauty, of which I had before thought so 
 highly, did not appear less on a closer survey. 
 The vision on which I gazed in silent rapture, 
 was a maiden, who, though she had apparently 
 
231 
 
 attained her full stature, did not seem to be more 
 than thirteen or fourteen years of age. Her eyes 
 had the brightness and fulness of the antelope's, 
 but, owing to their long silken lashes, were yet 
 more expressive of softness than of spirit; and at 
 this time they evinced more than usual languor. 
 She was in a rich undress, and was apparently an 
 invalid. Her long raven locks hung with careless 
 grace, partly behind, and partly over, a neck that 
 might have served as a model for the sculptor. 
 She was looking wistfully on a bunch of flowers 
 in her hand, which I felt pleasure in recognising 
 to be the same I had seen on the piece of em- 
 broidery. I feared to advance, lest I should give 
 offence ; but I felt also unable to retreat. I fan- 
 cied I saw one of those lovely and dignified fe- 
 males which the writers in your language describe 
 so well. But a sudden movement of the fair damsel 
 to get up, bringing me full in her view, she start- 
 ed back with alarm aud surprise, and in a moment 
 afterwards her cheek, which had been before 
 pale, almost to European whiteness, was deeply 
 .suffused. I respectfully approached her, and in- 
 quired if she was one of my cousins. She answer- 
 ed in the negative ; said she was on a visit to the 
 family, to whom she was related : added that she 
 had not expected to see any one in the garden : 
 
232 
 
 but this was said as if she meant rather to apolo- 
 gise for her undress, than to reproach me for ray 
 intrusion. These remarks' were uttered with a 
 propriety and sweetness that won upon me yet 
 more than her beauty. I then, in return, assured 
 her that I had not supposed any of the family had 
 remained at home, when I strolled to this part of 
 the mansion. I begged she would not regard me 
 with the formality of a stranger ; and insisted 
 that, as she was the cousin of my relation, she 
 was also mine. To this ingenious argument she 
 answered with so much good sense, and at the 
 same time, so much gentleness and artlessness, 
 that 1 thought I could have listened to her for 
 ever. While I spoke, she continued to move on. 
 [ entreated to know if she was satisfied with my 
 apology; repeated that I hao 1 * not meant to in- 
 trude on her privacy. She mildly replied that she 
 was. I then asked permission to call her cousin. 
 She said she should not object, if it would gave 
 me pleasure. It was, my dear Atterley, her inef- 
 fable sweetness of disposition, and of manners so 
 entirely free from pride, coquetry, or affectation, 
 in which this lovely creature excelled all other 
 women, yet more than in beauty and grace. I 
 then inquired when I should again see my lovely 
 cousin, She replied, — " I walk in the great gar 
 
233 
 
 den sometimes with my companions, when then- 
 brothers are away ; but the girls will not think it 
 proper to walk when you are there. 1 ' Perceiving 
 that I looked chagrined, she added : " It is said, 
 you know, that the light from mens 1 eyes is yet 
 worse for womens' faces than the light of the 
 sun ;" and she blushed as if she had said some- 
 thing wrong. I stammered out I know not what 
 extravagant compliment in reply, and entreated 
 that I might have an opportunity of seeing and 
 conversing with her sometimes : to which she 
 promptly answered that she should not object, if 
 her mother approved it. I inquired why she had 
 not attended the exhibition ; when I learnt from 
 her, that, as she had been slightly indisposed the 
 day before, and her mother being unwilling she 
 should expose herself to the heat of the weather 
 and the crowd, she had been left under the care 
 of her nurse ; but that finding herself better, she 
 had permitted her attendants to walk over the 
 grounds, while she amused herself in embroidery : 
 and that she had come into the garden to get a 
 fresh supply of the flowers she was working. 
 
 " She had by this time approached a small gate, 
 
 which communicated with the apartments on the 
 
 ground-floor of the Zenana ; when, turning to me, 
 
 -he said, " You can return the way you came, but 
 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 I must leave you here ;" and, making a slight bow., 
 she sprung like a young fawn through the gate, 
 and was out of sight in a moment. 
 
 " You may wonder, my dear Atterley, that I 
 should remember all these minute circumstances, 
 after the lapse of more than forty years ; but every 
 incident of that day is as fresh in my memory as 
 the occurrence of yesterday. To this single green 
 spot in my existence, my mind is never tired of 
 returning. 
 
 " I continued for some time in a sort of dream- 
 ing ecstasy; but as soon as I collected my 
 thoughts, 1 began to devise some scheme by which 
 i could again have the happiness of seeing and 
 conversing with the lovely Veenah. My brain had 
 before that time teemed with ambitious projects 
 of distinguishing myself; sometimes as a priest — 
 sometimes as a writer; and occasionally I thought 
 T would bend all my efforts to rouse my country- 
 men to throw off the ignominious yoke of Great 
 Britain. But this short interview had changed 
 the whole current of my thoughts. I had now a 
 new set of feelings, opinions, and wishes. My 
 mind dwelt solely upon the pleasures of domestic 
 life — the surpassing bliss of loving and of being 
 beloved. 
 
 "When the cavalcade returned in the evening, 
 
235 
 
 its gaudy magnificence, which I would not permit 
 myself even to see in the morning, I now regard- 
 ed with cold indifference; nay, more, I congra- 
 tulated myself on having missed the exhibition, 
 though a few hours before I had deemed this pri- 
 vation one of the misfortunes of my life. 
 
 " The next day I went to the garden betimes ; 
 and as it communicated with the shrubbery and 
 grounds attached to the Zenana, and the males 
 of the family occasionally entered it when the la- 
 dies were not present, I prevailed on the gardener 
 to grant me admission, under the pretext of ga- 
 thering some uncommonly fine mangoes, which 
 were then ripe. I went to the several spots where 
 I had first seen Veenah — where 1 had conversed 
 with her — where I had parted from her ; and they 
 each had some secret and indescribable charm 
 for me. I fear, Atterley, I fatigue you. The feel- 
 ings of which I speak, are fully known only to the 
 natives of warm climates, and to those but once 
 in their lives." 
 
 I assured him that he was mistaken ; that the 
 emotions he described, were the same in all coun- 
 tries, and at all times, and begged him to proceed. 
 
 " I repeated my visit," he continued, " several 
 times the same day, under any pretext I could 
 invent — to gather an orange, or other fruit — to 
 
236 
 
 pluck a rose to frighten away mischievous 
 
 birds — to catch the unobstructed breeze, or sit in 
 a cooler shade ; in which artifices I played a part 
 that had before been foreign to my nature. I 
 was disappointed, however, in my wishes. I 
 thought, indeed, I once saw some one in the 
 veranda, looking through the lattice into the 
 garden, but the figure soon disappeared. 
 
 "On the following day I had the satisfaction to 
 hear my young companions propose to go on a 
 fishing party, an amusement in which, by the rules 
 of my caste, I was not allowed to partake. They 
 had scarcely left the house before I flew to the 
 garden with a book in my hand, and passing as 
 before to the shrubbery, I buried myself in a close 
 thicket at one end of it. I remained there from 
 the morning till late in the afternoon, without re- 
 freshment of any kind ; and such was the intensity 
 of my emotion, that I did not feel the want of it. 
 At length, a little before sunset, I saw Veenah and 
 her three cousins enter the garden. I soon con- 
 trived to show myself, with my book in my hand. 
 1 approached, bowed to them all, but to Veenah 
 last ; and although my cousins showed surprise at 
 seeing me in their garden, at this time, they did 
 not seem displeased. I felt very desirous, I could 
 not tell why, to conceal my feelings from every 
 
237 
 
 person except her who was the object of them. I 
 forced a conversation with my two eldest cousins, 
 who were modest pleasing girls, and then with an 
 embarrassed air addressed a few words to Veenah 
 and her companion, the youngest of my cousins. 
 Occasionally I would stray off from them as if I 
 was about to leave them, and then suddenly return. 
 In one of these movements, I perceived that 
 Veenah and her associate had separated from the 
 others, and strolled to a distant part of the garden. 
 I soon joined them as if it were by accident, en- 
 tered into conversation with them alternately, and 
 of course only one half of that which I either 
 heard or said proceeded from the heart or found 
 its way thither. I know not if Veenah expected 
 to see me, but she was dressed with unusual care. 
 We had not been conversing many minutes before 
 the eldest sister beckoning to them, they bid me 
 good night and returned to the house. 
 
 " To the same sort of management I had recourse 
 every day, and seldom failed to see and converse 
 with Veenah, sometimes in company with all her 
 cousins, but oftener with Fatima, the youngest. 
 By dividing my attentions among them all, I suc- 
 ceeded for a while in concealing from them the 
 object of my preference ; but the sex are too 
 sharp-sighted to be long deceived in these matters. 
 
238 
 
 As soon as I perceived that my secret was disco- 
 vered, I endeavoured to make a friend of Fatima. 
 in which I was successful. After this our meet- 
 ings were more frequent, and what was of greater 
 importance, they were uninterrupted. Fatima. 
 who was one of the most generous and amiable 
 girls in the world, would often take Veenah out to 
 walk, when her sisters were otherwise engaged ; 
 at which times she was perpetually contriving, 
 under some little pretext, to leave us alone. We 
 were not long in understanding each other ; and 
 when I urged our early marriage, she ingenuously 
 replied, that I had her consent whenever I had 
 her father's, and that she hoped I could obtain 
 that; but added, (and she trembled while shespoke) 
 she did not know his views respecting her. In 
 the first raptures of requited affection, what lover 
 thinks of difficulties ? In obtaining Veenah\s 
 heart I believed that all mine were at an end, and 
 my time was passed in one dream of unmixed de- 
 light. Oh! what happiness I enjoyed in these 
 interviews — in seeing Veenah — in gazing on her 
 lovely features — in listening to her sentiments, that 
 were sometimes gay and thoughtless, sometimes 
 serious and melancholy, but always tender and 
 affectionate, — and now and then, when not per- 
 ceived, in venturing to take her hand. These 
 
239 
 
 fleeting joys are ever recurring to my imagination, 
 to show me what my lot might have been, and to 
 contrast it with its sad reverse ! 
 
 "The time now approached for Veenah and 
 her mother to return to Benares. On the evening 
 before they set out, Fatima contrived for us a 
 longer interview than usual. It was as melancholy 
 as it was tender. But in the midst of my grief, 
 at the prospect of our separation, I recollected 
 that we were soon to meet again in the city ; while 
 Veenah's tears, for she did not attempt to disguise 
 or suppress her feelings, seemed already to fore- 
 bode that our happiness was here to terminate. 
 
 " When about to part, we exchanged amaranths 
 I took her hand to bid her adieu, and, without 
 seeming to _ intend it, our lips met, and the first 
 kiss of love was moistened with a tear. Pardon 
 me, Atterley, nature will have her way.*' — And 
 here the venerable man wept aloud. 
 
 I availed myself of this interruption to the 
 narrative, to propose to my venerable friend to 
 take some refreshment. Having partaken of a 
 frugal repast, and invigorated ourselves, each 
 with about four hours' sleep, the Brahmin thus 
 resumed his story. 
 
Mi) 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Brahmin's story continued — The voyage 
 concluded — Atterley and the Brahmin separate 
 — Atterley arrives in New-York. 
 
 "I was not slow to follow Veenah to the city, 
 and as had been agreed upon, had to ask the consenl 
 of her father to our union, as soon as I had obtained 
 the approbation of my own. Here I met with a dif- 
 ficulty which I had not expected. My partial father 
 had formed very high hopes of my future advance- 
 ment, and thought that an early marriage, though 
 not incompatible with my profession, or a suc- 
 cessful discharge of its duties, would put an end 
 to my ambition, or at all events, lessen my exertions. 
 He first urged me to postpone my wishes, till I 
 had completed my college course, and had by tra- 
 velling seen something of the world. But finding 
 me immoveable on this point, he then suggested 
 that I might meet with serious obstacles from 
 Veenah's father, whom he represented as remark- 
 able both for his avarice and his bigotry ; that 
 consequently he was likely to dispose of his 
 daughter to the son-in-law who could pay most 
 
241 
 
 liberally for her; and that the imputations which 
 had been cast on my religious creed, would reach 
 his ears, if they had not already done so, and be 
 sure to prejudice him against me. 
 
 " These last considerations prevailed on me to 
 defer my application to Shunah Shoo, until the 
 suspicions regarding my faith had either died 
 away, or been falsified by my scrupulous observ- 
 ance of all religious duties. My excellent mother, 
 who at first had entered into my feelings and se- 
 conded my views, readily acquiesced in the good 
 sense of my father's advice. 
 
 " My next object was to communicate this to 
 Veenah. I accordingly sat down, and wrote a 
 full account of all that had occurred, and folding 
 up the packet, hurried to the opposite quarter of 
 the town where Shunah Shoo lived. It was then in 
 the dusk of the evening, and I was fearful it was 
 too late for me to be recognised ; but after I had 
 taken two or three turns in the street, I saw the 
 white amaranth I had given Veenah, suspended 
 by a thread from the lattice of an upper window. 
 I immediately held up the packet, and soon after- 
 wards a cord was let down from the same lattice 
 to the ground. To this 1 hastily fastened the 
 paper, and passed on to avoid observation. The 
 next evening you may be sure I was at the sarw* 
 21 
 
24-2 
 
 spot. The little amaranth again announced thai 
 I was recognised ; and as soon as we were satis- 
 fied that no one was observing us, the cord let 
 down one letter and took up another. Veenah's 
 pen had given an expression to her feelings, that 
 her tongue had never ventured to do before. She 
 moreover commended my course — besought me 
 to be prudent — and above all, to do nothing to 
 offend her father. 
 
 " The first letter which a lover receives from 
 his mistress, is a new era in his life. Again and 
 again I kissed the precious paper, and almost 
 wore it out in my bosom. We afterwards im- 
 proved in this mode of intercourse, and, by vari- 
 ous preconcerted signals, were able to carry on 
 our correspondence altogether in the night. Not 
 a day passed that we did not exchange letters, 
 which, though they contained few facts, and al- 
 ways expressed the same sentiments, still repeat- 
 ed what we were never tired of hearing. To the 
 moment at which I was to receive a letter from 
 Veenah, my thoughts were continually and anx- 
 iously turned : and it now seems to me as if our 
 passion was inflamed yet more by this sort of 
 intercourse, than by our personal interviews. I 
 am convinced it wrought more powerfully upon 
 our imaginations. 
 
243 
 
 " In the mean time I continued my daily attend- 
 ance at college, though my studies were utterly 
 neglected, one single object absorbing all my 
 thoughts and feelings. 
 
 " I know not whether the evident change in my 
 habits induced my old enemy, Baity Mahu, to 
 observe my motions. But so it was, that one moon- 
 light night I thought I was watched by some per- 
 son ; and on the following night an individual of 
 the same figure, and whom I now suspected to be 
 Baity Mahu, came suddenly from a cross street, 
 and passed near me. A few evenings afterwards, 
 instead of a letter, 1 received a scrap of paper 
 from Veenah, on which was written the follow- 
 ing words : — 
 
 " We are discovered. Baity Mahu, who is my 
 " relative and your enemy, has been here. He 
 ;t has persuaded my father that you are an unbe- 
 " liever. I am denied pen and ink. If you can- 
 " not convince my father of his error, O ! pity. 
 ;t and try to forget, your unhappy 
 
 " Veenah. " 
 
 •' This writing was indistinctly traced with a 
 burnt stick, on a blank leaf torn out of a book. 
 In the first moment of indignation, I felt disposed 
 
•ill 
 
 to seek Baity Mahu, the great enemy of my lite, 
 and wreak my vengeance on him for all his per- 
 secutions; but the conviction that such a course 
 would extinguish the last spark of hope, restrain- 
 ed me. I then determined to see Shunah Shoo, 
 and endeavour to remove his prejudices. I ac- 
 cordingly called on him at his own house : but 
 after he had heard my vindication, (to which he 
 evidently gave no credit,) he coolly told me that 
 he meant to dispose of his daughter in another 
 way. The words fell like ice upon my heart. I 
 expostulated ; and, offensive as was his haughty 
 air, even had recourse to entreaty. But he, in a 
 yet harsher manner, told me that he must be per- 
 mitted to manage his own affairs in his own way; 
 and added, that he did not wish to be longer pre- 
 vented from attending to them. I was compelled 
 to retire, with my heart almost as full of hatred 
 for the father, as of love for the child. 
 
 " On the same night, I again betook myself to 
 the street in which Shunah Shoo lived, but not 
 by the ordinary route. I cautiously approached 
 his house. All was stillness and quiet: no light 
 appeared to be burning in Veenah's room, nor 
 indeed in any other part of the house. I hence 
 concluded that they had now deprived her of 
 light, as well as of pen and ink. I continued in 
 
245 
 
 the street until near morning, straining my eyes 
 and ears in the hope of catching something that 
 would give me intelligence concerning her. Often, 
 in the course of that painful suspense, did I fancy 
 I heard a noise at the lattice in Veenah's apart- 
 ment, or in some other part of the mansion ; and 
 once I persuaded myself I saw a light : but these 
 illusions served only to aggravate my disappoint- 
 ment. The next morning, before I had left my 
 room, my father informed me that Shunah Shoo, 
 with his family, had left Benares early the pre- 
 ceding evening; but whither they had gone, he 
 had not learnt. 
 
 " I rose, and immediately set about discovering 
 their course; but all I could learn was, that they 
 had embarked in one of the passage-boats which 
 ply on the Ganges, and that Shunah had taken 
 his palanquins and many of his servants with him : 
 and, as Baity Mahu had suddenly absented him- 
 self from college at the same time, I did not doubt 
 that he had aided in executing the plan which he 
 had also probably formed. My father, who saw 
 what I suffered, spared no pains to discover the 
 place of their retreat ; but our endeavours were 
 all ineffectual. 
 
 " At the end of three months, in which time my 
 anxiety increased rather than diminished, the mys- 
 21* 
 
•246 
 
 tery was dispelled. It was now trumpeted through 
 the city, that Shunah Shoo had returned to Be- 
 nares in great pomp, accompanied by a wealthy 
 Omrah of a neighbouring district, to whom he 
 had given, or rather sold, his daughter. The 
 news came upon me like a clap of thunder. My 
 previous state of suspense was happiness com- 
 pared with what 1 now felt, when I knew she was 
 in the arms of another. In the first transports of 
 my grief and rage, I could have freely put to 
 death the father, daughter, husband, and myself. 
 I was particularly desirous of seeing Veenah, and 
 venting on her the bitterest reproaches. Unjust 
 that I was ! Her sufferings were not inferior to 
 mine ; but she had not, like me, the privilege of 
 making them known. I soon found that Hircar- 
 rahs, in the pay of Baity Mahu, watched all my 
 motions ; and if I had attempted any scheme of 
 vengeance, its execution would have been im- 
 practicable. 
 
 " After my first transports had subsided into 
 deep and settled grief, my love and tenderness for 
 Veenah returned in full force. I endeavoured to 
 get a sight of her, and thought I should be com- 
 paratively happy if I coukl converse with her, as 
 formerly, though she was the wife of another. 
 Aitcr a short time, my uncle's family came to 
 
247 
 
 Benares, on a visit to my father and to Shunah 
 Shoo. By the aid of my indulgent mother, who 
 was seriously alarmed for what she saw I suffered, 
 I was able to see Fatima, and to make her the 
 bearer of a letter to Veenah, complaining of her 
 breach of faith, and soliciting an interview. She 
 verbally replied to it through Fatima; and stated, 
 in her justification, that she was hurried from Be- 
 nares to a town on the river, whence she was 
 rapidly transported to the castle of Omrah, who 
 had not long before lost his wife, and who was 
 more than four times her age. That notwith- 
 standing the notions of filial obedience in which 
 she had been brought up, and the severity with 
 which her father had ever exercised his authority, 
 she had resisted his commands on this occasion, 
 and would have preferred death to marrying the 
 Omrah — nay, would have inflicted it on herself: 
 but that finding her unyielding after all their exer- 
 tions, they had effected their purpose by a decep- 
 tion which they had practised on her, wherein it 
 seemed that I had unconsciously concurred ; for, 
 by means of an intercepted letter of mine to Fa- 
 tima, in which, hopeless of learning the place of 
 Veenah's retreat, I had expressed an intention of 
 visiting England ; and, by the farther aid of some 
 dexterous forgeries, calculated to impose on moro 
 
248 
 
 experienced minds than hers, they succeeded in 
 persuading her that I had actually set out for 
 Europe, with an intention of never returning. 
 That entertaining no doubt of this intelligence — 
 hopeless of ever seeing me again, and indifferent 
 to every thing besides, she had been led an unre- 
 sisting victim to the altar. 
 
 " Such was the vindication which she consider- 
 ed it just to make me. But all the entreaties of 
 Fatima — all my letters, impassioned as they were, 
 appealing at once to her generosity, humanity, 
 and love, — could not prevail on her to grant me 
 an interview. 
 
 " ' Tell him, 1 said she, ' that heaven has forbid 
 it, and to its decrees we are bound to submit. I 
 am now the wife of another, and it is our duty to 
 forget all that is past. But if this be possible, my 
 heart tells me it can be only by our never meet- 
 ing!' 
 
 " In saying this, she wept bitterly ; but at the 
 same time exacted a promise from Fatima, that 
 she would never mention the subject to her again. 
 Finding her thus inexorable, I fell into a settled 
 melancholy, and my health was visibly declining. 
 The Europeans consider the natives of Hindostan 
 to be feeble and effeminate ; but the soul, that 
 which distinguishes man from brutes, acts with 
 
249 
 
 an intensity and constancy of purpose of which 
 they can furnish no examples. 
 
 " How long I could have withstood the corro- 
 sive effects of my hopeless passion, irritated as it 
 was by my being in the vicinity of its object — by 
 hearing perpetually of her beauty, and sometimes 
 catching a glimpse of it, — 1 know not ; but the 
 Omrah, after a few months spent with his father- 
 in-law, returned with his bride to his castle in the 
 country. Yielding now to the wishes of my anx- 
 ious parents, i consented to travel. I was at first 
 benefited by the exercise and change of scene ; 
 but after a while, my melancholy returned, and 
 my health grew worse. Though indifferent to 
 life itself, and all that it now promised, I exerted 
 myself for the sake of my parents, especially of 
 my mother, who suffered so acutely on my ac- 
 count : but I carried a barbed arrow in my heart, 
 and the greater the efforts to extract it, the more 
 they rankled the wound. 
 
 " After spending more than a year in travelling, 
 first through the mountainous district of our coun- 
 try, and then along the coast, and finding no 
 change for the better, I determined to try the 
 effect of a sea voyage. I accordingly embarked 
 at Calcutta, in a coasting vessel that was bound 
 to Madras. 
 
250 
 
 " At this time I had wasted away to a mere 
 skeleton, and no one who saw me, believed I 
 could live a month. Such, indeed, were my own 
 impressions. In the letter which I wrote to my 
 parents, I endeavoured to prepare them for the 
 worst. When, after a long voyage, we reached 
 Madras, my health was evidently improved ; but 
 a piece of intelligence I here received, had per- 
 haps a still greater effect I learnt that Baity 
 Mahu, who had kept himself concealed from me 
 before I left Benares, had lately visited Madras, 
 on a travelling tour. This news operated on me 
 like a charm. The idea of avenging myself on 
 the author of all my calamities, infused new life 
 into my exhausted frame, and from the moment 
 that I determined to pursue him, I felt like an- 
 other man. 
 
 " You must not, however, suppose that I even 
 then entertained the purpose of taking away my 
 enemy's life. No, 1 could not bring my mind 
 exactly to that; but I had a vague, undefined 
 hope, that if we met, some new provocation on 
 his part would afford me just occasion for aveng- 
 ing myself on all ; so ingenious, my dear friend, 
 is the sophistry of the passions. 
 
 " I lost no time in setting out on the track of 
 Baity Mahu, and, ere many days, overtook him at 
 
251 
 
 a small town which he had left just as I entered 
 it, but not before he had received, through his 
 servant, notice of my arrival. My wary enemy, 
 who had little expected to see me here, and who 
 had travelled as much to keep out of my way as 
 to see the country, conjectured my purpose, from 
 the consciousness of what he had done to provoke 
 it. Thus, while we both appeared to others to be 
 merely making a tour of Hindostan, it was soon 
 known to both of us, that my chief purpose was 
 to pursue him, and his to etude my pursuit. In 
 the ardour, as well as exercise of the chase, my 
 health mended rapidly, but I was no nearer the 
 object of my pursuit ; for, although 1 travelled 
 somewhat faster than Baity Maliu, as he wished 
 to avoid the appearance of Hying from me, he 
 sometimes contrived to put me on a wrong track. 
 In this way I was once led to travel towards the 
 coast, while he proceeded in an opposite direction 
 to Benares, where he considered he would be 
 most safe from my vengeance, and where the re- 
 straints both of religion and law would be more 
 likely to operate on me than in a foreign district. 
 " My usual practice, on arriving at any town, 
 was to endeavour to learn if Baity Mahu had 
 passed through it; if so, when and in what direc- 
 tion ; and to get the information, if possible, with- 
 
252 
 
 out seeming to seek it. On one of these occa- 
 sions, 1 heard from a party of merchants that the 
 Omrah Addaway, whose health had been declin- 
 ing for some time, had gone to Benares, for the 
 benefit of medical advice; that his disease, how- 
 ever, had become more serious ; and that it was 
 generally thought it would soon occasion his 
 death. What a train of new thoughts, hopes, and 
 desires, did this intelligence excite in me ! At 
 first, influenced by the custom of my country, 
 which prohibits widows from marrying again, I 
 thought only of the pleasure of Veenah's society, 
 which I should, of course, be permitted to enjoy, 
 when duty no longer forbade it ; but my imagi- 
 nation kindling in its course, I soon pictured her 
 to myself as my wife. The usages which stood in 
 the way of our union, appealed to me barbarous 
 and absurd, and I thought that banishment from 
 my country, with Veenah, would be infinitely 
 better than any other condition of life without 
 her. These new-born visions so entirely absorbed 
 me, that Baity Mahu was entirely forgotten, or 
 remembered only as we think of an insect which 
 had stung us an hour before. I travelled on at 
 a yet more rapid rate than I had done ; and, 
 without stopping on the road to make inquiries, 
 I heard enough to satisfy me that the Omrah 
 
253 
 
 could not long survive. When within something 
 more than ten leagues of Benares, \ called, about 
 twilight, at a small inn, and meant, after refresh- 
 ing myself with a few hours' rest, to proceed on 
 my journey. Two travellers were there, who had 
 just left Benares, and had taken up their quarters 
 for the night. They soon fell into conversation 
 about the place they had left, when the mention 
 of Shunah Shoo's name excited my attention. 
 
 " ' What a shame, 1 said one, ' that he should 
 have sacrificed that beautiful young creature to 
 the rich old Omrah, when she had so good an 
 offer as Gurameer, the Brahmin Garawad's only 
 son.' 
 
 " ' And is it not strange,' said the other, ' that 
 a woman so young and beautiful, should be con- 
 tent to follow to the grave one who is old enough 
 to be her grandfather, and whom she once loath- 
 ed ? But I suppose that that old miser, Shunah 
 Shoo, is at the bottom of it ; and, as he deprived 
 her of the man she loved, he has compelled her 
 to sacrifice herself to the one she hates, that he 
 may have her jewels and wealth.' 
 
 " 'For that matter,' said the first, 'though Shu- 
 nah Shoo is bad enough for any thing where mo- 
 ney is in the way, yet it is said that Veenah goes 
 to the funeral pile of her own accord. She has 
 22 
 
254 
 
 never seemed to set any value on life since hei 
 marriage ; and after she heard of Gurameer 1 ^ 
 death, she has never been seen to smile. Poor 
 
 young man !' And here they launched out 
 
 into a strain of panegyric, which is often bestow- 
 ed on the dead ; but I heeded only the first part 
 of their discourse. Had it not been nearly dark, 
 they must have discovered the force of the feel- 
 ings which then agitated me. I trembled from 
 head to foot, and, though burning with impatience 
 to obtain from them farther particulars, it was 
 some moments before I could trust myself to 
 speak. At length I asked them when the Suttee 
 would take place ; and was answered by one of 
 them, that it would certainly be performed on the 
 following day ; and that he had seen the funeral 
 pile himself. Without any farther delay, I set out 
 immediately for the city, and reached it in as short 
 a time as a jaded horse could carry me. 
 
 " I came in sight of Benares the next morning, 
 from a hill which overlooks it from the east. The 
 sun was jiisi rising, and pouring a flood of light 
 over the city, the river, and the surrounding coun- 
 try. Never was contrast greater than between 
 my present feelings, and those which the same 
 spectacle had formerly excited. 1 now sickened 
 at the prospect, which once would have set my 
 
255 
 
 heart bounding with joy. I pressed on in despe- 
 rate haste, scarcely, however, knowing what I did? 
 being at once overpowered with fatigue, loss of 
 sleep, and harassing emotions. I still had to tra- 
 vel a circuitous course of some two or three miles: 
 and when I reached the city, its crowded popula- 
 tion was already in motion : a great multitude of 
 women, of the lower order, with alarm and expec- 
 tation strongly depicted in their faces, were to be 
 seen mingling in the crowd, and pressing on in 
 the same direction. I would have proceeded im- 
 mediately to my father's house, but for the fear 
 of being too late. Alighting, therefore, from my 
 horse, I gave him in charge to my servant, whom 
 I sent to inform my parents of my arrival, and 
 to request my father to meet me at the Suttee. 
 I then joined the mixed multitude, which now 
 thronged the streets. Occupied, as my thoughts 
 were, with the scene I was about to witness, and 
 with fears for its issue, they were often interrupted 
 with remarks made in the crowd, in which Vee- 
 nah's name or mine were mentioned — some la- 
 menting her cruel fate, others pitying mine; but 
 all condemning and execrating Shun ah Shoo. 
 Fortunately I was not recognised by any whom I 
 saw. When we reached the spot selected for the 
 sacrifice, the crowd that had there assembled, was 
 
25(5 
 
 not so great as to prevent our getting near the 
 funeral pile ; but the numbers continued to aug 
 ment, until nothing could be seen from the slight 
 eminence on which I stood, but one dense mass 
 of heads, all looking one way, and expressing the 
 intense interest they felt. At length a murmur, like 
 that of distant thunder, ran through the crowd : 
 a passage was, with some difficulty, effected 
 through the multitude by the officers in attend- 
 ance, and the wretched Veenah made her appear- 
 ance, supported by her own father on one side, 
 and an uncle on the other — pale enough to be 
 taken for an European — emaciated indeed, but 
 still retaining the same exquisite beauty of fea- 
 tures and symmetry of form. She moved with 
 the air of one who was utterly indifferent to the 
 concerns of this world, and to the awful fate 
 which awaited her. She turned her head on hear- 
 ing the sound of my voice, and, seeing me, shriek- 
 ed out, " He lives ! he lives !" but immediately 
 afterwards fainted in the arms of her supporters : 
 at the same moment I was forcibly held back by 
 some of the attendants, and a number of the by- 
 standers rushed in between us, and intercepted 
 my view. I heard my name now repeated in 
 every direction by the multitude — some calling 
 out to the priests to desist, and others to proceed. 
 
257 
 
 I struggled to extricate myself, and passion lent 
 me momentary strength ; but it was insufficient. 
 After a short interval, I distinctly heard Veenah 
 imploring them to spare her. I called to the 
 Brahmins who held her, to leave her to herself. I 
 endeavoured to rouse the multitude ; but they 
 took the precaution to drown our voices, by the 
 musical instruments which are used on these oc- 
 casions. Four of these monsters I saw profaning 
 the name of religion, by forcibly placing their vic- 
 tim on the pile, under the show of assisting her 
 to mount, it ; and there held her down, beside the 
 dead body of her husband, until, by cords pro- 
 vided for the purpose, she was prevented from 
 rising. I besought — 1 threatened — I raved ; — but 
 all thoughts and minds were engrossed by the 
 premature fate of one so young and beautiful, and 
 I was unheeded. 
 
 " Among the relatives who pressed around the 
 iuSeral pile, I saw Baity Mahu ; and indignation 
 for a moment got the better of grief. The pile 
 was now lighted, and in a moment all was hidden 
 in smoke. I sickened at the sight, and was obliged 
 to turn away. Even then I heard, or thought I 
 heard, the dying shrieks of the victim, amid the 
 groans and cries, and the thousand shouts that 
 rent the air! The pile and its contents being 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 now enveloped in flame, my keepers set me free, 
 when, by an impulse of frenzy, I rushed to the 
 pile, to make a last vain effort to rescue Veenah, 
 or to share her fate ; but was stopped by some of 
 the bystanders, who called my act a profanation. 
 
 " ' Yes,' said Baity Mahu, 'he has always been 
 a scoffer of our religion.' As soon as these words 
 reached my ears, with the quickness of thought I 
 snatched a cimeter from the hands of one of the 
 guards, and plunged it in his breast. Of all that 
 happened afterwards, my recollection is very con- 
 fused. I was rudely seized, and hurried to prison. 
 My father was coming to meet me, when he was 
 informed of the fatal deed. I remember that my 
 coolness, or rather stupor, was in strong contrast 
 with the violence of his emotion. He accompa- 
 nied me to prison, and continued with me that 
 night. 
 
 " It is not easy to take the life of one of my 
 caste in India ; and, by dint of the exertions of 
 my friends, in spite of the influence of Shunah 
 Shoo, and the family of the Omrah, I was par- 
 doned, on condition of doing penance, which was, 
 that I should never live in a country in which 
 the religion of Brahmin prevailed, and should not 
 again look at, or converse with, any woman for 
 two minutes together. Ere this took place, my 
 
259 
 
 excellent mother, unable to withstand the shocks 
 she had received from my supposed death, my 
 misfortunes, and my crime, died a martyr to ma- 
 ternal affection. Wishing to conform to the sen- 
 tence, and to be as near my father as I could, I 
 removed to the kingdom of Ava, where, you know, 
 they are followers of Buddha. Here I continued 
 as long as my father lived, which was about six 
 years. In this period, time had so alleviated my 
 grief, that I began to take pleasure in the culti- 
 vation of science, which constituted my chief 
 employment. 
 
 " After my father's death, I indulged a curio- 
 sity I had felt in my youth, of seeing foreign coun- 
 tries ; and I visited China, Japan, and England. 
 During my residence in Asia, 1 had discovered 
 lunarium ore in the mountain near Mogaun; and 
 this circumstance, many years afterwards, when 
 I determined to rest from my labours, induced me 
 to settle in that mountain, as I have before stated. 
 I have occasionally used the metal to counterba- 
 lance the gravity of a small car, by which I have 
 profited, by a favourable wind, to indulge the 
 melancholy satisfaction of looking down on the 
 tombs of my parents, and of the ill-fated Veenah ; 
 approaching the earth near enough, in the night, 
 to see the sacred spots, but not enough to violate 
 
260 
 
 the religious injunctions of my caste ; to avoid 
 which, however, it was sometimes necessary for 
 me to go across Hindostan to Arabia or Persia, 
 and there wait for a change of wind before I could 
 return: and it was these excursions which sug- 
 gested to the superstitious Burmans that my 
 form had undergone a temporary transformation. 
 When such have been the woes of my life, you 
 can no longer think it strange, Atterley, that I 
 delayed their painful recital ; or that, after having 
 endured so much, all common dangers and mis- 
 fortunes should appear to me insignificant." 
 
 The venerable Brahmin here concluded his 
 narrative, and we both remained thoughtful and 
 silent for some time ; he, apparently absorbed 
 in the recollections of his eventful life; and I, 
 partly in the reflections awakened by his story, 
 and partly in the intense interest of revisiting my 
 native earth, and beholding once more all who 
 were dear to me. Already the extended map 
 beneath us was assuming a distinct and varied 
 appearance ; and the Brahmin, having applied his 
 eye to the telescope, and made a brie'" calcula- 
 tion of our progress, considered that twenty-four 
 hours more, if no accident interrupted us, would 
 
261 
 
 end our voyage; part of which interval I passed 
 in making notes in my journal, and in contem- 
 plating the different sections of our many-peopled 
 globe, as they presented themselves successively 
 to the eye. It was my wish to land on the Ame- 
 rican continent, and, if possible, in the United 
 States. But the Brahmin put an end to that hope, 
 by reminding me that we should be attracted to- 
 wards the Equator, and that we had to choose 
 between Asia, Africa, and South America; and 
 that our only course would be, to check the pro- 
 gress of our car over the country of grpntcst ex- 
 tent, through which the equinoctial circle might 
 pass, Saying which, he relapsed into his melan- 
 choly silence, and I betook myself once more to 
 the telescope. With a bosom throbbing with 
 emotion, I saw that we were descending towards 
 the American continent. When we were about 
 ten or twelve miles from the earth, the Brahmin 
 arrested the progress of the car, and we hovered 
 over the broad Atlantic. Looking down on the 
 ocean, the first object which presented itself to 
 my eye, was a small one-masted shallop, which 
 was buffeting the waves in a south-westerly direc- 
 tion. I presumed it was a New- England trader, 
 on a voyage to some part of the Republic of Co- 
 lombia : and, by way of diverting my friend from 
 
262 
 
 his melancholy reverie, I told him some of the 
 many stories which are current respecting the 
 enterprise and ingenuity of this portion of my 
 countrymen, and above all, their adroitness at a 
 bargain. 
 
 " Methinks," says the Brahmin, " you are de- 
 scribing a native of Canton or Pekin. But, 1 ' 
 added he, after a short pause, " though to a su- 
 perficial observer man appears to put on very 
 different characters, to a philosopher he is every 
 where the same — for he is every where moulded 
 by the circumstances in which he is placed. 
 Thus ; let him be in a situation that is propitious 
 to commerce, and the habits of traffic produce in 
 him shrewdness and address. Trade is carried 
 on chiefly in towns, because it is there carried on 
 most advantageously. This situation gives the 
 trader a more intimate knowledge of his species 
 — a more ready insight into character, and of the 
 modes of operating on it. His chief purpose is to 
 buy as cheap, and to sell as dear, as he can ; and 
 he is often able to heighten the recommendations 
 or soften the defects of some of the articles in 
 which he deals, without danger of immediate de- 
 tection ; or, in other words, his representations 
 have some influence with his customers. He 
 avails himself of this circumstance, and thus ar- 
 
263 
 
 quires the habit of lying ; but, as he is studious 
 to conceal it, he becomes wary, ingenious, and 
 cunning. It is thus that the Phenicians, the Car- 
 thagenians, the Dutch, the Chinese, the New- 
 Englanders, and the modern Greeks, have always 
 been regarded as inclined to petty frauds by their 
 less commercial neighbours.'" I mentioned the 
 English nation. 
 
 " If the English, 11 said he, interrupting me, 
 " who are 'the most commercial people of modern 
 times, have not acquired the same character, it is 
 because they are as distinguished for other things 
 as for traffic : they are not merely a commercial 
 people — they are also agricultural, warlike, and 
 literary; and thus the natural tendencies of com- 
 merce are mutually counteracted." 
 
 We afterwards descended slowly ; the prospect 
 beneath us becoming . more beautiful than my 
 humble pen can hope to describe, or will even 
 attempt to portray. In a short time after, we 
 were in sight of Venezuela. We met with the 
 trade-winds, and were carried by them forty 01 
 fifty miles inland, where, with some difficulty, and 
 even danger, we landed. The Brahmin and my- 
 self remained together two days, and parted — he 
 to explore the Andes, to obtain additional light on 
 the subject of his hypothesis, and 1, on the wings 
 
264 
 
 of impatience, to visit once more my long-desert- 
 ed family and friends. But before our separation. 
 I assisted my friend in concealing our aerial ves- 
 sel, and received a promise from him to visit, and 
 perhaps spend with me the evening of his life. Of 
 my journey home, little remains to be said. From 
 the citizens of Colombia, I experienced kindness 
 and attention, and means of conveyance to Ca- 
 raccas; where, embarking on board the brig Juno, 
 captain Withers, I once more set foot in New- 
 York, on the 18th of August, 1826, after an ab- 
 sence of four years, resolved, for the rest of 
 my life, to travel only in books, and persuaded, 
 from experience, that the satisfaction which the 
 wanderer gains from actually beholding the won- 
 ders and curiosities of distant climes, is dearly 
 bought by the sacrifice of all the comforts and 
 delights of home. 
 
 THE EXD. 
 
Date Due 
 
 
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