Everything still appeared to be in the same state as before. Nothing was
changed. The vast arch of the celestial dome glittered with stars, and
constellations blazed with a light clear and pure enough to throw an
astronomer into an ecstasy of admiration. Below them shone the Sun, like
the mouth of a white-hot furnace, his dazzling disc defined sharply on
the pitch-black back-ground of the sky. Above them the Moon, reflecting
back his rays from her glowing surface, appeared to stand motionless in
the midst of the starry host.

A little to the east of the Sun, they could see a pretty large dark
spot, like a hole in the sky, the broad silver fringe on one edge fading
off into a faint glimmering mist on the other--it was the Earth. Here
and there in all directions, nebulous masses gleamed like large flakes
of star dust, in which, from nadir to zenith, the eye could trace
without a break that vast ring of impalpable star powder, the famous
_Milky Way_, through the midst of which the beams of our glorious Sun
struggle with the dusky pallor of a star of only the fourth magnitude.

Our observers were never weary of gazing on this magnificent and novel
spectacle, of the grandeur of which, it is hardly necessary to say, no
description can give an adequate idea. What profound reflections it
suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in
their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the
journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted
carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his
enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically,
his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the
slightest emotion.