answer of the Genius.

Peace and happiness, said he, attend those who practice justice! Since
thy heart, O mortal, with sincerity seeketh truth; since thine eyes can
still recognize her through the mist of prejudice, thy prayer shall not
be in vain. I will unfold to thy view that truth thou invokest; I will
teach thy reason that knowledge thou seekest; I will reveal to thee the
science of ages and the wisdom of the tombs.

Then approaching and laying his hand on my head, he said:

Rise, mortal, and extricate thy senses from the dust in which thou
movest.

Suddenly a celestial flame seemed to dissolve the bands which held us to
the earth; and, like a light vapor, borne on the wings of the Genius,
I felt myself wafted to the regions above. Thence, from the aerial
heights, looking down upon the earth, I perceived a scene altogether
new. Under my feet, floating in the void, a globe like that of the moon,
but smaller and less luminous, presented to me one of its phases; and
that phase* had the aspect of a disk varigated with large spots, some
white and nebulous, others brown, green or gray, and while I strained my
sight to distinguish what they were, the Genius exclaimed:

* See Plate representing half the terrestrial globe,
opposite page 10.

Disciple of Truth, knowest thou that object?

O Genius, answered I, if I did not see the moon in another quarter of
the heavens, I should have supposed that to be her globe. It has
the appearance of that planet seen through the telescope during the
obscuration of an eclipse. These varigated spots might be mistaken for
seas and continents.

They are seas and continents, said he, and those of the very hemisphere
which you inhabit.

What! said I, is that the earth--the habitation of man?

Yes, replied he, that brown space which occupies irregularly a great
portion of the disk, and envelops it almost on every side, is what you
call the great ocean, which advancing from the south pole towards the
equator, forms first the great gulf of India and Africa, then extends
eastward across the Malay islands to the confines of Tartary, while
towards the west it encircles the continents of Africa and of Europe,
even to the north of Asia.

That square peninsula under our feet is the arid country of the Arabs;
the great continent on its left, almost as naked in its interior, with
a little verdure only towards its borders, is the parched soil inhabited
by black-men.* To the north,