After this episode, it is time for us to return to our travellers, whose feelings, the moment they touched the ground, repayed them for all they had endured.  Atterley looked around with the most intense curiosity; but nothing he saw, “surprised him so much, as to find so little that was surprising:”—­vegetation, insects, and other animals, were pretty much of the same character as those he had before seen; but, on better acquaintance, he found the difference greater than he had at first supposed.  Having refreshed themselves with the remains of their stores, and secured the door of the machine, they bent their course to the town of Alamatua, about three miles distant, which seemed to contain about two thousand houses, and to be not quite as large as Albany; the people were tall and thin, and of a pale, yellowish complexion; their garments light, loose, and flowing, and not very different from those of the Turks; they subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet, live about as long as we do on the earth, notwithstanding the great difference of climate, and other circumstances; and do not, in their manners, habits, or character, differ more from the inhabitants of this globe, than some of the latter do from one another; their government, anciently monarchical, is now popular; their code of laws very intricate; their language, naturally soft and musical, has been yet further refined by the cultivation of letters; and they have a variety of sects in religion, politics, and philosophy.

The lunarians do not, as Butler has it—­

    “When the sun shines hot at noon,
    Inhabit cellars under ground,
    Of eight miles deep and eighty round.”

But, one half of their houses is beneath the surface, partly for the purpose of screening them from the continued action of the sun’s rays, and partly on account of the earthquakes caused by volcanoes.  The windows of the houses consisted of openings in the wall, sloping so much upwards, that, whilst they freely admitted the light and air, the sun was completely excluded.  As soon as they were espied by the natives, great curiosity was of course excited; not, however, to so troublesome an extent, as might have been, from the circumstance of the Brahmin’s having visited the moon before.  Hence he was soon recognised by some of his acquaintances, and conducted to the house of the governor, by whom they were graciously received, and who “began a course of interesting inquiries regarding the affairs of the earth;” but a gentleman, whom they afterwards understood to be one of the leaders of the popular party, coming in, he soon despatched them; having, however, first directed an officer to furnish them with all that was necessary for their accommodation, at the public expense; “which act of hospitality, they had reason to fear, occasioned him some trouble and perplexity at the succeeding election.”