EXCURSION TO THE REALMS BEL0W. 65 



want of a certain volatile oil, extracted from a concen- 

 tration of fun-beams, compounded with many other 

 miraculous energies, has the virtue to render any body 

 incomburible that is faturated with it, — I have not yet 

 been able to perfect my art fo far as to hold out 

 longer than three or four feconds in the element of fa- 

 lamanders ; and therefore, to my great lorrow, have 

 not been in a capacity for making fo many obferva- 

 tions in that remarkable region of the world of fpirits, 

 as I could willi, lince my old friend Gabalis (whom I 

 beg may not be confounded with the celebrated Gabli- 

 tone) has related to me the moft extraordinary things 

 in the world of the beauty and the intellectual charms 

 of the falamandreffes with whom he is very intimately 

 acquainted. 



It will perhaps be objected to me : * c Three or four 

 feconds for a foul to be abfent from the body is a 

 long time ; and Mohammed rode on the als Elbo- 

 <c rak, fo famous throughout the univerfe, a progrefs 

 *• over all the nine heavens in lefs than three feconds ; 

 *' and withal had no fewer than lixty thoufand conver- 



*' fations with the man in the moon 



I will not be fo uncivil as to call the hiftorical vera- 

 city of this mufiulmannical relation into doubt ; or, as 

 many would rafhly do, boldly deny a fact fo limple in 

 Itfelf, and corroborated by very refpectable perfons. 



* The Mohammedans fay, w : th God: but it is manifeft that it 

 ■can have been none other than the man in the moon. In general 

 \^e may rely upon this, that of all which has been faid and writ- 

 t. n at th? charges of the good God, for thefe twenty -or thirty 

 thoufand years paft, not the hundredth part is true* 



VOL. t> F ' If 



