with serene magnificence, eclipsing other lights with her intense
irradiation. All the Yankees directed their eyes towards the shining
disc; some saluted her with their hands, others called her by the
sweetest names; between eight o'clock and midnight an optician in
Jones-Fall-street made a fortune by selling field-glasses. The Queen of
Night was looked at through them like a lady of high life. The Americans
acted in regard to her with the freedom of proprietors. It seemed as if
the blonde Phoebe belonged to these enterprising conquerors and already
formed part of the Union territory. And yet the only question was that
of sending a projectile--a rather brutal way of entering into
communication even with a satellite, but much in vogue amongst civilised
nations.

Midnight had just struck, and the enthusiasm did not diminish; it was
kept up in equal doses in all classes of the population; magistrates,
_savants_, merchants, tradesmen, street-porters, intelligent as well as
"green" men were moved even in their most delicate fibres. It was a
national enterprise; the high town, low town, the quays bathed by the
waters of the Patapsco, the ships, imprisoned in their docks, overflowed
with crowds intoxicated with joy, gin, and whisky; everybody talked,
argued, perorated, disputed, approved, and applauded, from the gentleman
comfortably stretched on the bar-room couch before his glass of
"sherry-cobbler" to the waterman who got drunk upon "knock-me-down" in
the dark taverns of Fell's Point.

However, about 2 a.m. the emotion became calmer. President Barbicane
succeeded in getting home almost knocked to pieces. A Hercules could not
have resisted such enthusiasm. The crowd gradually abandoned the squares
and streets. The four railroads of Ohio, Susquehanna, Philadelphia, and
Washington, which converge at Baltimore, took the heterogeneous