What a sea! The ocean has its visible surface on which move the ships;
but we had none. The heavens were beneath us as well as above. We were
floating in the great circle of the systems and the suns. We were of
the universe; but were to be numbered with the constellations and the
stars. We could compare ourselves to a company of immortals quitting
the earth and traversing the electric seas which lead to brighter
homes. Or we were voyagers to the sun, or to the nearer Venus, or to
the far distant Centaurus. What a world of new thought was forced upon
us by the fancies and realities and charm and awe of our extraordinary
condition, combined with the profound consciousness we could not fail
to entertain of the effects which this crowning discovery of Messrs.
Bonflon and De Aery must produce on travel, on commerce, on art, and
the common destiny of mankind!
I found the atmosphere of the cabins, as my friend Bonflon had
asserted, agreeable and healthful. I could also occupy the promenade
deck for half an hour with little inconvenience, so far as the levity
of the air was concerned; but the cold was severe; while the system, in
consequence of an undue expansion of its particles, solid and fluid,
from the diminished pressure of the atmosphere, was rendered doubly
susceptible to its influence.
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