All that was required on my part was a mere act of the mind, and I went
where I wished. I visited Uranus and Neptune, after which I stretched my
swift wings for the great flight, away from our Solar System, over
billions of miles of space. I alighted on the burning star nearest to
our Earth. This star is called, by our astronomers, Alpha Centaurus, and
it is said to be 20,000,000,000,000 miles away. This star is much
greater than our Sun and is the center of a system of worlds larger and
more numerous than those that compose our Solar System.

You cannot imagine my surprise when I reached Alpha Centaurus and found
that it was inhabited by a class of human creatures who were created to
live and flourish in fire. Their customs and habits are so strange that
I am not capable of giving an intelligent description of them. I know
that it is inconceivable to us how life can be developed and sustained
in the midst of a burning sun, and I found that these beings in turn
could not conceive how life can exist in a cold world like ours.

These creatures have no digestive organs. They live, in part, on the
chemical action produced by fire breathing. The hotter the fire, the
more easily is life sustained. If they were to get away from the heat,
this chemical action would cease and therefore death would be as certain
to them as being enveloped in fire would spell death to us.

In our eyes, their bodies are misshapen, composed of elements most of
which are not found in our world. There are many cold places, or sun
spots, on Alpha Centaurus, but these are shunned by the people as death
traps. However, the centers of population gather on the more solid
sections, most of which lie around the sun spots.