as compelled, like John Phoenix, to
manufacture my own orrery, and I did it with a lump of frozen, tallow
to represent the earth, a chunk of black bread for the moon, and small
pieces of dried meat for the lesser planets. The resemblance to the
heavenly bodies was not, I must confess, very striking; but by making
believe pretty hard we managed to get along. A spectator would have
been amused could he have seen with what grave solemnity I circulated
the bread and tallow in their respective orbits, and have heard the
long-drawn exclamations of astonishment from the natives as I brought
the bread into eclipse behind the lump of tallow. My first lecture
would have been a grand success if my native audience had only been
able to understand the representative and symbolical character of
the bread and tallow. The great trouble was that their imaginative
faculties were weak. They could not be made to see that bread stood
for the moon and tallow-for the earth, but persisted in regarding them
as so many terrestrial products having an intrinsic value of their
own. They accordingly melted up the earth to drink, devoured the
moon whole, and wanted another lecture immediately. I endeavoured
to explain to them that these lectures were intended to be
_as_tronomical, not _gas_tronomical, and that eating and drinking
up the heavenly bodies in this reckless way was very improper.
Astronomical science I assured them did not recognise any such
eclipses as those produced by swallowing the planets, and however
satisfactory such a course might be to them, it was very demoralising
to my orrery. Remonstrances had very little effect, and I was
compelled to provide a new sun, moon, and earth for every, lecture. It
soon became evident to me that these astronomical feasts were becoming
altogether too popular, for my audience thought nothing of eating up
a whole solar system every night, and planetary material was becoming
scarce. I was finally compelled, therefore, to use stones and
snowballs to represent celestial bodies, instead of bread and tallow,
and from that time the interest in astronomical phenomena gradually
abated and the popularity of my lectures steadily declined until I was
left without a single hearer.

The short winter day of three hours had long since closed and the
night was far advanced when after twenty-three days of rough travel
we drew near our final destination--the _ultima Thule_ of Russian
civilisation. I was lying on my sl