to a sort of earth in the air, resembling a
large shiny circular island with a remarkably
brilliant light. Of this island Endymion
has been appointed king. It is he that
appears to us as the moon; in fact, he is the
real and only genuine man in the moon. The
king of Moonites is in a sad way. The condition
of the Moonland question is the grand political
problem of the time. The population
increases fast, but the meat diminishes as the
mouths multiply. There is nothing for it but
to emigrate. The morning-star happens to be
lying waste and uninhabited, and King
Endymion resolves to send a colony there.
Phaeton, king of the sun, opposes the project,
and as the emigrants are on their way to the
star, he sends a troop of horse-emmets to
meet them. The hero of the True History
agrees to take part in the war. An army is
raised. First, there are eighty thousand
horse-vultures, then a troop of twenty
thousand mounted on birds that have cabbages
for feathers and lettuces for wings. Then
there are bean-shooters, garlic-throwers, and
wind-coursers. Seventy thousand sparrow-
acorns and five thousand horse-cranes are
promised; but our adventurer does not see
these for not a bad reason—they never came.
The order of battle is as follows: The horse-
vultures, led by the king, compose the right
wing; the auxiliaries occupy the centre; the
left wing consists of the cabbage-fowl. The
foot soldiery amounts to sixty millions.

There is a species of spiders in the moon,
the smallest bigger than a good-sized
island. These spiders receive orders to fill up
the whole tract of air between the moon and
morning-star, with a web. In a few minutes
the work is done, and serves as a floor for the
foot-soldiers to form on. They are commanded
by Nightbird, Fairweather's son, and two
other generals.

In the enemy's left-wing stand the horse-
emmets, led by Phaeltson. The largest of them
covers two acres; they fight with their horns.

In the right-wing are the air-crows, the
radish-darters, the dog-acorns sent from
Sirius. The slingers expected from the
milky-way never came at all, and the blond
centaurs arrive after the battle is over.

No sooner has the battle been joined than
the Sunites turn their backs. The men of the
Moon pursue them with great slaughter. On
the other hand, the cabbage-fowl get the
worst of it; but the infantry come to their
assistance, and the enemy's forces are routed.
But only see! The clouds are tinged with
the blood spilt. Blood even trickles down
from them to earth. And this is the true
explanation of those crimson showers which
Homer pretends that Jupiter rained for
Sarpedon's death. As the Moonites are
erecting trophies, one for the infantry, on the
cobweb, the other in the clouds for those who
had fought in the air, intelligence is brought
that the blond centaurs are approaching. An
army of cavalry, half men and half winged
horses, with the human half as big as
the upper portion of the Colossus at Rhodes,
and the equine half resembling a great ship
of burthen, was an ugly customer. Led by
Sagittarius from the Zodiac they rout the
Moonites, pursue their king to the walls of his
capital, kill the greater part of his birds,
throw down the trophies, overrun the Field
of the Cloth of Cobweb, and make our
traveller and his companions prisoners of
war, tying their hands behind them with a
cord of the cobweb. After that, instead of
besieging the capital, they carry up a double
rampart of clouds between the sun and the
moon. A total eclipse ensues, and the
moment Endymion finds himself in the dark
he cries for mercy. An embassy is deputed
to the sun, and the entreater being humble
and the proposals advantageous, that luminary
does not make light of them, but
concludes a treaty offensive and defensive with
his benighted enemies. Endymion being
under an eclipse consents to pay a yearly
tribute of ten thousand casks of dew to the
king of the sun. Both the contracting parties
are to assist in establishing the colony in the
morning-star. The treaty is engraved on a
pillar of amber set up in the confines of the
two kingdoms, being first solemnly signed by
Fireman, Summerheat, and Flamington, on
the part of the Sunites and Nightlove,
Mooney and Chaucelight on the part of the
Moonites.

The wall is now pulled down, and the
welcome day is restored to Endymion's silver
island. On his return to that inconstant orb
the king meets our hero and requests that he
and his friends will be pleased to remain with
them. They refuse, and after a sumptuous
entertainment, which lasts a week, take their
leave of Eudymion and the Moonites.

"Once more upon the waters, yet once
more," till a new adventure awaits them.
They are sailing quietly along when they are
swallowed up, ship and all, by a whale. To
their surprise they find mountains, valleys,
temples and gardens within. Gulls, halcyons,
and other sea-birds flit about, as if they
were quite used to it. Presently our
travellers meet an old man who, with his
son and servants, has lived twenty-seven
years within this colossal prince of whales.
Untractable creatures, of the most grotesque
shape inhabit the cetaceous hills and valleys.
Some of the ferocious beings are furnished
with crab's-claws instead of hands, others
instead of the orthodox human countenance,
prefer the heresy of a crab's face, and even
adopt the pleasing variety of eel's eyes. These
very odd fishes our hero proposes to attack.
The assault is successful. The crabbed
originals are all put to the sword or driven
into the sea. Our hero and his friends now
make themselves at home, but, after a two
years' enjoyment of this new domestic bliss,
they find the situation too retired and resolve
to escape. To effect their purpose they set the