The ardent curiosity I had felt to behold the wonderful things which the Brahmin related, and the hope of returning soon to my children and native country, had made me most impatient for the moment of departure; during which time the hazards and difficulties of the voyage were entirely overlooked:  but now that the moment of execution had arrived, and I found myself shut up in this small chest, and about to enter on a voyage so new, so strange, and beset with such a variety of dangers, I will not deny that my courage failed me, and I would gladly have compromised to return to Mozaun, and remain there quietly all the rest of my days.  But shame restrained me, and I dissembled my emotions.

At our first shock on leaving the earth, my fears were at their height; but after about two hours, I had tolerably well regained my composure, to which the returning light of day greatly contributed.  By this time we had a full view of the rising sun, pouring a flood of light over one half of the circular landscape below us, and leaving the rest in shade.  While those natural objects, the rivers and mountains, land and sea, were fast receding from our view, our horizon kept gradually extending as we mounted:  but ere 10 o’clock this effect ceased, and the broad disc of the earth began sensibly to diminish.

It is impossible to describe my sensations of mingled awe and admiration at the splendid spectacle beneath me, so long as the different portions of the earth’s surface were plainly distinguishable.  The novelty of the situation in which I found myself, as well as its danger, prevented me indeed at first from giving more than a passing attention to the magnificent scene; but after a while, encouraged by the Brahmin’s exhortation, and yet more by the example of his calm and assured air, I was able to take a more leisurely view of it.  At first, as we partook of the diurnal motion of the earth, and our course was consequently oblique, the same portion of the globe from which we had set out, continued directly under us; and as the eye stretched in every direction over Asia and its seas, continents and islands, they appeared like pieces of green velvet, the surrounding ocean like a mirror, and the Ganges, the Hoogley, and the great rivers of China, like threads of silver.

About 11 o’clock it was necessary to get a fresh supply of air, when my companion cautiously turned one of the two stop-cocks to let out that which was no longer fit for respiration, requesting me, at the same time, to turn the other, to let in a fresh supply of condensed air; but being awkward in the first attempt to follow his directions, I was so affected by the exhaustion of the air through the vent now made for it, that I fainted; and having, at the same time, given freer passage to the condensed air than I ought, we must in a few seconds have lost our supply, and thus have inevitably perished, had not the watchful Hermit seen the mischief, and repaired it almost as soon as it occurred.  This accident, and the various agitations my mind had undergone in the course of the day, so overpowered me, that at an early hour in the afternoon I fell into a profound sleep, and did not awake again for eight hours.