Life in a Thousand Worlds | Page 5

I saw and heard, but must content myself with giving a passing view of a thousand worlds, some of which are situated in a very distant corner of our universe.
Well you may ask: "How could you travel from world to world and see the various forms of human life, and then remain alive to tell a part of the marvelous tale?"
If it is a mystery to you, it is also a mystery to me. I cannot describe the pinions that carried me, nor tell whence came the strength that moved my wings, any more than I can explain by what process I was preserved alive in worlds of fire, in worlds of ice, and in worlds without air. But the sight of all these things was as real to me as the dreams of the night, and it must be admitted that dreams are often as realistic as the acts of our wakeful moments.
For many years I looked outward toward the starry firmament, and at times a deep yearning possessed me to speed away to converse with the inhabitants of other spheres.
This hope I cherished so strongly that my thoughts completely overpowered me, and ere I knew it I was living at the mercy of indescribable emotions. All this continued during many revolutions of the Earth on its axis. I felt as Columbus must have felt when he was moving over strange waters. Then occurred the most notable event of my life. In the twinkling of an eye I was caught away from the Earth and, without any effort of my own, I was darting through space faster than a sunbeam.
CHAPTER II.
A Visit to the Moon.
I was not prepared for the quick transit to our satellite, nor for the views thrust upon me so suddenly. Before I could well collect my thoughts I found myself in the immediate vicinity of the Moon and, strange as it may seem, I was conscious of my surroundings and knew that I had power to transport myself instantly to any place I might wish to go.
To see the Moon face to face gives a charming satisfaction which can never be realized two hundred and forty thousand miles away. I was conscious of my privilege and was determined to take all possible advantage of it.
Now how differently everything appeared from the views I had snatched through the telescope while yet on the Earth. I could not see the "Man in the Moon," whose grinning face had so often looked down upon me, but from my first point of observation everything looked as if life had never existed there and, consequently, I was about to conclude that no human beings inhabit the Moon. This theory soon vanished, for after I had traveled over a hundred miles I came to a thriving center of population, the largest city on the sphere, inhabited by more than sixty thousand rational beings.
These creatures resemble us most strongly in their mental capacities, though their bodies are out of harmony with ours, having three eyes and no nose. The third eye is situated in the center of the forehead, and the other two more toward the sides of the head.
Life is not sustained by breathing a gaseous air as we do, so that the sense of smell is performed by the protruded upper lip. At the voluntary effort to catch scent the upper lip noticeably rolls upward into a partial scroll.
I was anxious to learn how the life of these Moonites is sustained without breathing and, to my astonishment, I learned that they eat solid air at intervals of about six hours. This is not taken in connection with the regular food, but is eaten alone and carried into a separate stomach wherein it is disintegrated by the chemical action of the stomachic acids. The gases thus formed serve the same purpose as the air we breathe into our lungs.
According to the conjectures of some earthly astronomers I was expecting to see a race of immense giants. On the contrary, I found that these Moonites grow to only about one-fourth our height, but possess fully three-fourths as much circumference of body. Notwithstanding that they are so short and rotund, they are healthy and exceedingly quick in all their bodily movements.
No doubt I shall be chided for saying that these Moon-inhabitants are a handsome people, but I was enabled to judge them by a universal standard of beauty, and I looked upon them as a product of the same infinite Creator who fashioned our mortal bodies with such marvelous adaptation of means to end.
One thing is sure, were a person from the Moon to set foot upon our planet, he would estimate us to be as far out of harmony with his standards of beauty as we should consider him to be out