"Then dash your lens!" cried Media.

"Well said, my lord. For all the eyes we get beyond our own, but
minister to infelicity. The microscope disgusts us with our Mardi; and
the telescope sets us longing for some other world."



CHAPTER XIX
They Go Down Into The Catacombs


With a dull flambeau, we now descended some narrow stone steps, to
view Oh-Oh's collection of ancient and curious manuscripts, preserved
in a vault.

"This way, this way, my masters," cried Oh-Oh, aloft, swinging his dim
torch. "Keep your hands before you; it's a dark road to travel."

"So it seems," said Babbalanja, wide-groping, as he descended lower
and lower. "My lord this is like going down to posterity."

Upon gaining the vault, forth flew a score or two of bats,
extinguishing the flambeau, and leaving us in darkness, like Belzoni
deserted by his Arabs in the heart of a pyramid. The torch at last
relumed, we entered a tomb-like excavation, at every step raising
clouds of dust; and at last stood before long rows of musty, mummyish
parcels, so dingy-red, and so rolled upon sticks, that they looked
like stiff sausages of Bologna; but smelt like some fine old Stilton