continents, and islands,
were faintly, though not indistinctly, traced; and every moment
brought forth something new to catch my eye, and awaken my curiosity.
The whole face of the moon was of a silvery hue, relieved and varied
by the softest and most delicate shades. No cloud nor speck of vapour
intercepted my view. One of my exclamations of delight awakened the
Brahmin, who quickly arose, and looking down on the resplendent orb
below us, observed that we must soon begin to slacken the rapidity of
our course, by throwing out ballast. The moon's dimensions now rapidly
increased; the separate mountains, which formed the ridges and chains
on her surface, began to be plainly visible through the telescope;
whilst, on the shaded side, several volcanoes appeared upon her disc,
like the flashes of our fire-fly, or rather like the twinkling of
stars in a frosty night. He remarked, that the extraordinary clearness
and brightness of the objects on the moon's surface, was owing to her
having a less extensive and more transparent atmosphere than the
earth: adding--'The difference is so great, that some of our
astronomical observers have been induced to think she has none. If
that, however, had been the case, our voyage would have been
impracticable.'"

After gazing for some time on this magnificent spectacle, with
admiration and delight, one of their balls of _lunarium_ was let
off for the purpose of checking their velocity. At this time the
Brahmin supposed they were not more than four thousand miles from the
nearest point of the moon's surface. In about four hours more, her
apparent magnitude was so great, that they could see her by looking
out of either of the side windows.

"Her disc had now lost its former silvery appearance, and began to
look more like that of the earth, when seen at the same distance. It
was a most gratifying spectacle to behold the objects successively
rising to our view, and steadily enlarging in their dimensions. The
rapidity with which we approached the moon, impressed me, in spite of
myself, with the alarming sensation of falling; and I found myself
alternately agitated with a sense of this danger, and with impatience
to take a nearer view of the new objects that greeted my eyes. The
Brahmin was wholly absorbed in calculations for the purpose of
adjusting our velocity to the distance we had to go, his estimates of
which, however, were in a g