A VOYAGE TO THE RINGED PLANET. 67 



us lay the sun, whose disc was barely equal to the 

 seventieth part of the orb he shows to the earth. 

 Directly in front lay Saturn, looking nearly as large as 

 the sun, though infinitely less brilliant. Besides these 

 two orbs, the heavens presented only bright points of 

 light ; and the earth we had so lately left was now 

 altogether undiscernible. 



Impressed with a sense of utter loneliness, for save 

 where some vagrant meteor flashed past us, we saw no 

 created thing within ninety millions of miles, we 

 exercised the powers we possessed to their utmost, in 

 order to reach the planet which we recognised for the 

 time being as a home prepared for us. Saturn grew 

 under our view, so swift was our onward flight ; his 

 ring-system became more and more clearly discernible ; 

 and his satellites could now be clearly distinguished 

 from the star-bespangled background upon w.hich 

 hitherto all but the two brightest had been lost. We 

 had determined to pass straight to the planet's globe, 

 a course which would carry us above the nearest part 

 of the ring-system. I say * above,' though in reality 

 c above was below, and below was above,' stripped as we 

 were of gravitating body. We were in fact to pass 

 athwart the northern face of the rings. 



As we neared the planet, though as yet we were 

 far beyond the path of the outermost satellite, we 

 could perceive that the golden colour which had 

 formed so beautiful a feature of Saturn, came from 

 certain parts only of his globe ; or rather, a much 

 deeper tint, a burning cinnamon (so to describe at 



F 2 



