* See Plate representing half the terrestrial globe,
opposite page 10.

Disciple of Truth, knowest thou that object?

O Genius, answered I, if I did not see the moon in another quarter of
the heavens, I should have supposed that to be her globe. It has
the appearance of that planet seen through the telescope during the
obscuration of an eclipse. These varigated spots might be mistaken for
seas and continents.

They are seas and continents, said he, and those of the very hemisphere
which you inhabit.

What! said I, is that the earth--the habitation of man?

Yes, replied he, that brown space which occupies irregularly a great
portion of the disk, and envelops it almost on every side, is what you
call the great ocean, which advancing from the south pole towards the
equator, forms first the great gulf of India and Africa, then extends
eastward across the Malay islands to the confines of Tartary, while
towards the west it encircles the continents of Africa and of Europe,
even to the north of Asia.

That square peninsula under our feet is the arid country of the Arabs;
the great continent on its left, almost as naked in its interior, with
a little verdure only towards its borders, is the parched soil inhabited
by black-men.* To the north, beyond a long, narrow and irregular sea,**
are the countries of Europe, rich in meadows and cultivated fields. On
its right, from the Caspian Sea, extend the snowy and naked plains of