(Worn to a stump and quite useless).

These wonders inspected, Oh-Oh conducted us to an arbor, to show us
the famous telescope, by help of which, he said he had discovered an
ant-hill in the moon. It rested in the crotch of a Bread-fruit tree;
and was a prodigiously long and hollow trunk of a Palm; a scale from a
sea-kraken its lens.

Then returning to his cabinet, he pointed to a bamboo microscope,
which had wonderfully assisted him in his entomological pursuits.

"By this instrument, my masters," said he, "I have satisfied myself,
that in the eye of a dragon-fly there are precisely twelve thousand
five hundred and forty-one triangular lenses; and in the leg of a
flea, scores on scores of distinct muscles. Now, my masters, how far
think you a flea may leap at one spring? Why, two hundred times its
own length; I have often measured their leaps, with a small measure I
use for scientific purposes."

"Truly, Oh-Oh," said Babbalanja, "your discoveries must ere long
result in something grand; since you furnish such invaluable data for
theorists. Pray, attend, my lord Media. If, at one spring, a flea
leaps two hundred times its own length, then, with the like proportion
of muscles in his calves, a bandit might pounce upon the unwary
traveler from a quarter of a mile off. Is it not so, Oh-Oh?"

"Indeed, but it is, my masters. And one of the greatest consolations I
draw from these studies, is the ever-strengthening conviction of the
beneficent wisdom that framed our Mardi. For did men possess thighs in
proportion to fleas, verily, the wicked would grievously leap about,
and curvet in the isles."

"But Oh-Oh," said Babbalanja, "what other discoveries have you made?
Hast yet put a usurer under your lens, to find his conscience? or a
libertine, to find his heart? Hast yet brought your microscope to bear
upon a downy peach, or a rosy cheek?"

"I have," said Oh-Oh, mournfully; "and from the moment I so did, I
have had no heart to eat a peach, or salute a cheek."

"Then dash your lens!" cried Media.

"Well said, my lord. For all the eyes we get beyond our own, but
minister to infelicity. The microscope disgusts us with our Mardi; and
the telescope sets us longing for some other world."

CHAPTER XIX
They Go Down Into The Catacombs

With a dull flambeau, we now descended some narrow stone steps, to
view Oh-Oh's collection of ancient and curious manuscripts, preserved
in a vault.

"This way, this way, my masters,"