and thus they are wafted through the air after the manner of ships. In battle they are generally used like our peltasts. It was currently reported that seventy thousand sparrow acorns and five thousand horse cranes were to be sent us from the stars over Cappadocia; but I must own that I did not see them, and for this plain reason, that they never came. I therefore shall not take upon me to describe them; for all sorts of amazing and incredible things were propagated about them.

Such were the forces of Endymion. Their arms and accouterments were all alike. Their helmets were of bean shells, the beans with them being excessively large and thick-shelled. Their scaly coats of mail were made of the husks of their lupines sewed together, for in that country the shell of the lupine is as hard and impenetrable as horn. Their shields and swords differ not from those of the Greeks.

Everything now being ready, the troops disposed themselves in the following order of battle: the horse vultures composed the right wing, and were led on by the king in person, surrounded by a number of picked men, amongst whom we also were ranged; the left wing consisted of the cabbage fowl, and in the center were placed the auxiliaries, severally classed. The foot soldiery amounted to about sixty millions. There is a species of spiders in the moon, the smallest of which is bigger than one of the islands of the Cyclades. These received orders to fill up the whole tract of air between the moon and morning star with a web. This was done in a few instants, and served as a floor for the foot soldiers to form themselves in order of battle upon; these were commanded by Nightbird, Fairweather's son, and two other generals.

On the left wing of the enemy stood the horse pismires, headed by Phaeton. These animals are a species of winged ants, differing from ours only in bulk, the largest of them covering no less than two acres. They have besides one peculiarity, that they assist their riders in fighting principally with their horns. Their number was given in at about fifty thousand. On the right wing in the first engagement somewhere about fifty thousand gnat riders were posted, all archers, mounted on monstrous huge gnats. Behind these stood the radish darters, a sort of light infantry, but who greatly annoyed the enemy: being armed with slings from which they threw horrid large radishes to a very great distance; whoever was struck by them died on the spot, and the wound instantly gave out an intoler

able stench, for it is said that they dipped the radishes in mallow poison. Behind them stood the stalky mushrooms, heavy-armed infantry, ten thousand in number, having their name from their bearing a kind of fungus for their shield, and using stalks of large asparagus for spears. Not far from these were placed the dog acorns, who were sent to succor Phaeton from the inhabitants of Sirius, in number five thousand. They were men with dogs' heads, who fought on winged acorns, which served them as chariots. Besides, there went a report that several other reinforcements were to have come, on which Phaeton had reckoned, particularly the slingers that were expected from the Milky Way, together with the cloud centaurs. The latter, however, did not arrive till after the affair was decided, and it had been as well for us if they had stayed away; the slingers, however, came not at all, at which Phaeton was so enraged that he afterwards laid waste their country by fire. These then were all the forces that Phaeton brought into the field.

The signal for the onset was now given on both sides by asses, which in this country are employed instead of trumpeters: and the engagement had no sooner begun, than the left wing of the Heliotans, without waiting for the attack of the horse vultures, turned their backs immediately; and we pursued them with great slaughter. On the other hand, their right wing at first gained the advantage over our left, and the gnat riders overthrew our cabbage fowl with such force, and pursued them with so much fury, that they advanced even to our footmen; who, however, stood their ground so bravely that the enemy were in their turn thrown into disorder and obliged to fly, especially when they saw that their left wing was routed. Their defeat was now decisive; we made a great many prisoners, and the slain were so numerous that the clouds were tinged with the blood that was spilt, as they sometimes appear to us at the going down of the sun; aye, it even trickled down from them upon the earth. So that I was led to suppose that a similar event in former times, in the upper regions, might perhaps have caused those showers of blood which Homer makes his Jupiter rain for Sarpedon's death.

Returning from the pursuit of the enemy, we erected two trophies; one for the infantry on the cobweb, the other on the clouds for those who had fought in the air. While we were thus employed, intelligence was brought us from our fore posts

that the cloud centaurs were now coming up, which ought to have joined Phaeton before the battle. I must own, that the march towards us of an army of cavalry that were half men and half winged horses, and of whom the human half was as big as the upper moiety of the colossus at Rhodes, and the equine half resembling a great ship of burden, formed a spectacle altogether extraordinary. Their number I rather decline to state, for it was so prodigious that I am fearful I should not be believed. They were led on by Sagittarius from the Zodiac. As soon as they learnt that their friends had been defeated, they sent immediately a dispatch to Phaeton, to call him back to the fight; whilst they marched up in good array to the terrified Selenites, who had fallen into great disorder in pursuing the enemy and dividing the spoil, put them all to flight, pursued the king himself to the very walls of his capital, killed the greater part of his birds, threw down the trophies, overran the whole field of cobweb, and together with the rest made me and my two companions prisoners of war. Phaeton at length came up; and after they had erected other trophies, that same day we were carried prisoners into the sun, our hands tied behind our backs with a cord of the cobweb.

The enemy did not think fit to besiege Endymion's capital, but contented himself with carrying up a double rampart of clouds between the moon and the sun, whereby all communication between the two was effectually cut off, and the moon deprived of all sunlight. The poor moon, therefore, from that instant suffered a total eclipse, and was shrouded in complete uninterrupted darkness. In this distress, Endymion had no other resource than to send a deputation to the sun, humbly to entreat him to demolish the wall, and that he would not be so unmerciful as to doom him to utter darkness; binding himself to pay a tribute to the sun, to assist him with auxiliaries whenever he should be at war, never more to act with hostility against him, and to give hostages as surety for the due performance of the contract. Phaeton held two councils to deliberate on these proposals in the first, their minds were as yet too soured to admit of a favorable reception; but in the second, their anger had somewhat subsided, and the peace was concluded by a treaty which ran thus:

The Heliotans with their allies on the one part, and the Selenites with their confederates on the other part, have entered into a

league, in which it is stipulated as follows: The Heliotans engage to demolish the wall, never more to make hostile attacks upon the moon, and that the prisoners taken on both sides shall be set at liberty on the payment of an equitable ransom. The Selenites on their part promise not to infringe the rights and privileges of the other stars, nor ever again to make war upon the Heliotans; but on the contrary, the two powers shall mutually aid and assist one another with their forces, in case of any invasion. The king of the Selenites also binds himself to pay to the king of the Heliotans a yearly tribute of ten thousand casks of dew, and give ten thousand hostages by way of security. With reference to the colony in the morning star, both the contracting parties shall jointly assist in establishing it, and liberty is given to any that will to share in the peopling of it. This treaty shall be engraved on a pillar of amber, to be set up between the confines of the two kingdoms. To the due performance of this treaty are solemnly sworn, on the part of the

HELIOTES.
Fireman.
Summerheat.
Flamington.

SELENITES.

Nightlove.
Moonius.

Changelight.

This treaty of peace being signed, the wall was pulled down, and the prisoners were exchanged. On our return to the moon, our comrades and Endymion himself came forth to meet us, and embraced us with weeping eyes. The prince would fain have retained us with him; making us the proposal at the same time to form part of the new colony, as we liked best. He even offered me his own son for a mate (for they have no women there). This I could by no means be persuaded to, but earnestly begged that he would set us down upon the sea. Finding that I could not be prevailed on to stay, he consented to dismiss us, after he had feasted us most nobly during a whole week.

When a Selenite is grown old, he does not die as we do, but vanishes like smoke in the air.

The whole nation eats the same sort of food. They roast frogs (which with them fly about the air in vast numbers) on coals; then when they are done enough, seating themselves round the hearth, as we do at a table, snuff up the effluvia that rises from them, and in this consists their whole meal. When thirsty, they squeeze the air into a goblet, which is filled in this manner with a dewlike moisture.

Whoever would pass for a beauty among them must be bald and without hair; curly and bushy heads are an abomination to them. But in the comets it is just the reverse: for there only curly hair is esteemed beautiful, as some travelers, who were well received in those stars, informed us. Nevertheless they have somewhat of a beard a little above the knee. On their feet they have neither nails nor toes; for the whole foot is entirely one piece. Every one of them at the point of the rump has a large cabbage growing, in lieu of a tail, always green and flourishing, and which never breaks off though a man falls on his back.

They sneeze a very sour kind of honey; and when they are at work or gymnastic exercises, or use any exertion, milk oozes from all the pores of the body in such quantities that they make cheese of it, only mixing with it a little of the said honey.

They have an art of extracting an oil from onions, which is very white, and of so fragrant an odor that they use it for perfuming. Moreover, their soil produces a great abundance of vines, which instead of wine yield water grapes, and the grapestones are the size of our hail. I know not how better to explain the hail with us, than by saying that it hails on the earth whenever the vines in the moon are violently agitated by a high wind, so as to burst the water grapes.

The Selenites wear no pockets, but put all they would carry with them in their bellies, which they can open and shut at pleasure. For by nature they are quite empty, having no intestines; only they are rough and hairy within, so that even their new-born children, when they are cold, creep into them.

As to their clothing, the rich wear garments of glass, but those of the poorer sort are wove of brass; for these regions are very prolific in ores, and they work it as we do wool, by pouring water upon it.

But what sort of eyes they have, I doubt my veracity would be suspected were I to say; it is so incredible. Yet, having already related so much of the marvelous, this may as well go along with the rest. They have eyes, then, that they can take out whenever they choose whoever therefore would save his eyes, takes them out, and lays them by; if anything that he would fain see presents itself, he puts his eyes in again and looks at it. Some who have carelessly lost their own borrow of others; for rich people are always provided with a good stock.