an slave trade.

"After various trials and many successive improvements, in which our
desires increased with our success, we determined to penetrate the
aerial void as far as we could, providing for that purpose an
apparatus, with which you will become better acquainted hereafter. In
the course of our experiments, we discovered that this same metal,
which was repelled from the earth, was in the same degree attracted
towards the moon, for in one of our excursions, still aiming to ascend
higher than we had ever done before, we were actually carried to that
satellite, and if we had not there fallen into a lake, and our machine
had not been water-tight, we must have been dashed to pieces or
drowned. You will find in this book," he added, presenting me with a
small volume, bound in green parchment, and fastened with silver
clasps, "a minute detail of the apparatus to be provided, and the
directions to be pursued in making this wonderful voyage. I have
written it since I satisfied my mind that my fears of British rapacity
were unfounded, and that I should do more good than harm by publishing
the secret. But still I am not sure," he added, with one of his faint
but significant smiles, "that I am not actuated by a wish to
immortalize my name; for where is the mortal who would be indifferent
to this object, if he thought he could attain it? Read the book at
your leisure, and study it."

Here, by the way, we may remark, that the kind of vehicle best adapted
for conveyance through the aerial void, has been a weighty stumbling
block to authors, from the time of the eagle-mounted Ganymede, to that
of Daniel O'Rourke; or of the wing furnished Daedalus and Icarus, to
that of the flying Turk in Constantinople, referred to by Busbequius;
or of the flying artist of the happy valley, in Rasselas. When
Trygaeus was desirous of reaching the Gods, he erected, we are told, a
series of small ladders--[Greek: epeita lepta klimakia]--but receiving
a severe contusion on the head, from their downfall, he ingeniously
had recourse to a scheme of flying through the air, on a colossal
variety of those industrious but not over-delicate insects, the
_Scarabaeus Carnifex_--the only insect, notwithstanding, according
to Aesop, privileged to ascend to the habitations of the gods--

[Greek: monos peteinoon eis theous aphigmenos.[2]]

Most of the stories of Pegasi and Hippogriffs, and of flying chariots,
from