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Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that of the very best Moon dog among them!" "Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!" "Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and no end of chickens!"
"You are right, sir," answered Michel Ardan, "the discussion has wandered from the point; we will return to the moon." "Sir," resumed the unknown man, "you pretend that our satellite is inhabited. So far so good; but if Selenites do exist they certainly live without breathing, for I tell you the fact for your good there is not the least particle of air on the surface of the moon."
That he did not doubt but Providence would reward the Virtuous of his Species; that his Mercy and Justice were without Bound, which ought to keep him from desponding. The next Day a great Number of Selenites came to see me, and entertain'd me with abundance of Candour.
A mooring-rope was flung and grasped, and I found myself pulled down to a level with a great crowd of Selenites, who jostled to see me. "It was an incredible crowd. Suddenly and violently there was forced upon my attention the vast amount of difference there is amongst these beings of the moon. "Indeed, there seemed not two alike in all that jostling multitude.
The earth was only a day old, having been new at midnight the day before, and two days having to go by before her crescent, disengaged from the solar rays, could serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in her movement of rotation each of her points always passes the same meridian of the moon every twenty-four hours.
I find obscure mention of the specular stone also to have been found and applied to this use in England, but in such doubtful sort as I dare not affirm it for certain. Nevertheless certain it is that antiquity used it before glass was known, under the name of selenites.
It is even possible that the Selenites have already planted the flag on one of their poles, while Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont, d'Urville, and Lambert have never yet been able to attain that unknown point of the terrestrial globe. As to islands, they are numerous on the surface of the moon.
The Selenites navigate its cavernous straits and lagoons in little shallow boats of a canoe-like shape; and even before my journey to the galleries about the Grand Lunar, who is Master of the Moon, I was permitted to make a brief excursion on its waters. "The caverns and passages are naturally very tortuous.
The shadows made gigantic travesties of our shapes and those of the Selenites on the irregular wall and roof of the tunnel. Ever and again crystals in the walls of the tunnel scintillated like gems, ever and again the tunnel expanded into a stalactitic cavern, or gave off branches that vanished into darkness. We seemed to be marching down that tunnel for a long time.
M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to Ardan: "Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!" "How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit to M'Nicholl.
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