In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our miles up
to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of matter much lighter
than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft as newly-fallen snow. He
found himself on one of the many circumjacent mountain-ridges with which we
are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's "Map of the Moon." Within, down it
sunk perpendicularly into a caldron, about a Danish mile in depth; while below
lay a town, whose appearance we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by
beating the white of an egg in a glass of water. The matter of which it was
built was just as soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars,
transparent and rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was
rolling like a large fiery ball.

He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what we call
"men"; yet they looked different to us. A far more correct imagination than
that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and if they had been placed in
rank and file, and copied by some skilful painter's hand, one would, without
doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily, "What a beautiful arabesque!"

*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said to be by
Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its inhabitants,
written with such a semblance of truth that many were deceived by the
imposture.

Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard A.
Locke, and originally published in New York.


They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of the
watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend it; for in