stature did not exceed six hundred and sixty fathoms, but her agreeable manners amply atoned for that deficiency.

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'Oh, cruel one!" she exclaimed, "after having resisted you for fifteen hundred years, and when I was at last beginning to surrender, and have passed scarcely a hundred years in your arms, to leave me thus, and start on a long journey with a giant of another world! Go, you have no taste for anything but novelty, you have never felt what it is to love; if you were a true Saturnian, you would be constant. Whither away so fast? What is it you would have? Our five moons are less fickle than you, our ring is less changeable. So much for what is past! I will never love anyone again."

The philosopher embraced her, and, in spite of all his philosophy, joined his tears with hers. As to the lady, after having fainted away, she proceeded to console herself with a certain beau who lived in the neighbourhood.

1

;

Meanwhile our two inquirers set forth on their travels they first of all jumped upon Saturn's ring, which they found pretty flat, as an illustrious inhabitant of our little globe has very cleverly conjectured; thence they easily made their way from moon to moon. A comet passed quite near the last one, so they sprang upon it, together with their servants and their instruments. When they had gone about a hundred and fifty millions of leagues, they came across the satellites of Jupiter. They landed on Jupiter itself, and remained there for a year, during which they learned some very remarkable secrets which would be at the present moment in the press, were it not for the gentlemen who act as censors, and who have discovered therein some statements too hard for them to swallow. But I have read the manuscript which contains them in the library of the

Huyghens, the discoverer of Saturn's ring, whose "Systema Saturnium" was published in 1659.

illustrious Archbishop of —, who, with a generosity and kindness which cannot be sufficiently commended, has permitted me to peruse his books. Accordingly I promise to give him a long article in the next edition that shall be brought out of Moreri,' and I will be specially careful not to forget his sons, who afford such good hope of the perpetuation of their illustrious father's progeny.

But let us return to our travellers. Quitting Jupiter, they traversed a space of about a hundred million leagues, and, coasting along the planet Mars, which, as is well known, is five times smaller than our own little globe, they saw two moons, which attend upon that planet, and which have escaped the observation of our astronomers.

I am well aware that Father Castel will write, and pleasantly enough too, against the existence of these two moons, but I refer myself to those who reason from analogy. Those excellent philosophers know how difficult it would be for Mars, which is such a long way off from the sun, to get on with less than two moons. Be that as it may, our friends found the planet so small, that they were afraid of finding no room there to put up for the night, so they proceeded on their way, like a pair of travellers who disdain a humble village inn, and push on to the nearest town. But the Sirian and his companion soon had cause to repent having done so, for they went on for a long time without finding anything at

'The first edition of Louis Moreri's "Grand Dictionnaire Historique et Critique" appeared at Paris in 1673, and the last in 1759.

"They" (ie., the astronomers of Laputa) "have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars." ("Gulliver's Travels," part iii.) Strangely enough, this conjecture, which, it will be seen, Voltaire borrowed from Swift, has been verified by the progress of science, for in 1877 Professor Asaph Hall, of Washington, discovered that Mars is actually attended by two moons, which have received the appropriate uames of "Phobos" and "Deimos " (" Fear" and "Terror ")

all. At last they perceived a faint glimmer; it came from our earth, and created compassion in the minds of those who had so lately left Jupiter. However, for fear of repenting a second time, they decided to disembark. They passed over the tail of the comet, and meeting with an aurora borealis close at hand, they got inside, and alighted on the earth by the northern shore of the Baltic Sea, July the 5th, 1737, new style.

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TRAVELLERS ON THE
TERRESTRIAL GLOBE.

AFTER having rested for some time, they consumed

for their breakfast a couple of mountains, which their people prepared for them as daintily as possible. Then wishing to inspect the country where they were, they first went from north to south. Each of the Sirian's ordinary steps was about thirty thousand statute feet; the Saturnian dwarf, whose height was only a thousand fathoms, followed panting far behind, for he had to take about a dozen steps when the other made a single stride. Picture to yourself (if I may be allowed to make such a comparison) a tiny little toy spaniel pursuing a captain of the King of Prussia's grenadiers.

As the strangers proceeded pretty quickly, they made the circuit of the globe in thirty-six hours; the sun, indeed, or rather the earth, makes the same journey in a day; but it must be borne in mind that it is a much easier way of getting on, to turn on one's axis, than to walk on one's feet. Behold our travellers, then, returned to the same spot from which they had started,

after having set eyes upon that sea, to them almost imperceptible, which is called the Mediterranean, and that other little pond which, under the name of the great Ocean, surrounds this mole-hill. Therein the dwarf had never sunk much above the knee, while the other had scarcely wetted his ankle. They did all they could, searching here and there, both when going and returning, to ascertain whether the earth were inhabited or not. They stooped, they lay down, they groped about in all directions; but their eyes and their hands being out of all proportion to the tiny beings who crawl up and down here, they felt not the slightest sensation which could lead them to suspect that we and our fellow-creatures, the other inhabitants of this globe, have the honour to exist.

The dwarf, who sometimes judged a little too hastily, at once decided that there was not a single creature on the earth. His first reason was that he had not seen one. But Micromegas politely gave him to understand that that was not a good argument:

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For," said he, "you, with your little eyes, cannot see certain stars of the fiftieth magnitude which I distinctly discern; do you conclude from that circumstance that those stars have no existence ? "

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"But," said the dwarf, "I have felt about very carefully."

"But," rejoined the other, "your powers of perception may be at fault."

"But," continued the dwarf, "this globe is so ill-constructed, it is so irregular, and, as it seems to me, of so ridiculous a shape! All here appears to be in a state of chaos; look at these little brooks, not one of which goes in a straight line; look at these ponds, which are neither round nor square, nor oval, nor of any regular form; and all these little sharp-pointed grains with which this globe bristles, and which have rubbed the skin off my feet!'

he alluded to the mountains-" Observe too the shape of the globe as a whole, how it is flat at the poles, how it turns round the sun in a clumsily slanting manner, so that the polar climes are necessarily mere wastes. In truth, what chiefly makes me think that there is nobody here, is that I cannot suppose any people of sense would wish to occupy such a dwelling."

"Well," said Micromegas, "perhaps the people who inhabit it are not people of sense. But in point of fact there are some signs of its not having been made for nothing. Everything here seems to you irregular, you say; that is because everything is measured by the line of Saturn and Jupiter. Ay, perhaps it is for that very reason that there is so much apparent confusion here. Have I not told you that in the course of my travels I have always remarked the presence of variety?" The Saturnian had answers to meet all these arguments, and the dispute might never have ended, if Micromegas, in the heat of discussion, had not luckily broken the thread which bound together his collar of diamonds, so that they fell to the ground; pretty little stones they were, of rather unequal size, the largest of which weighed four hundred pounds, and the smallest not more than fifty. The dwarf, who picked up some of them, perceived, on bringing them near his eyes, that these diamonds, from the fashion in which they were cut, made capital microscopes. He, accordingly, took up a little magnifier of one hundred and sixty feet in diameter, which he applied to his eye; and Micromegas selected one of two thousand five hundred feet across. They were of high power, but at first nothing was revealed by their help, so the focus had to be adjusted. At last the inhabitant of Saturn saw something almost imperceptible, which moved half under water in the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He caught it very cleverly with his little finger, and placing it on his thumb nail, showed it to the