the sails in every part, and onwards we travelled at a prodigious rate;
thus we proceeded above the clouds for six weeks. At last we discovered
a great land in the sky, like a shining island, round and bright, where,
coming into a convenient harbour, we went on shore, and soon found it
was inhabited. Below us we saw another earth, containing cities, trees,
mountains, rivers, seas, &c., which we conjectured was this world
which we had left. Here we saw huge figures riding upon vultures of a
prodigious size, and each of them having three heads. To form some idea
of the magnitude of these birds, I must inform you that each of their
wings is as wide and six times the length of the main sheet of our
vessel, which was about six hundred tons burthen. Thus, instead of
riding upon horses, as we do in this world, the inhabitants of the moon
(for we now found we were in Madam Luna) fly about on these birds. The
king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he offered me
a commission, but I declined the honour his majesty intended me.
Everything in _this_ world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common flea
being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war, their principal
weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are wounded
by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms, and their
darts (when radishes are out of season) of the tops of asparagus. Some
of the natives of the dog-star are to be seen here; commerce tempts them
to ramble; their faces are like large mastiffs', with their eyes near
the lower end or tip of their noses: they have no eyelids, but cover
their eyes with the end of their tongues when they go to sleep; they are
generally twenty feet high. As to the natives of the moon, none of them
are less in stature than thirty-six feet: they are not called the human
species, but the cooking animals, for they all dress their food by fire,
as we do, but lose not time at their meals, as they open their left
side, and place the whole quantity at once in their stomach, then shut
it again till the same day in the next month; for they never indulge