elve, and
was diminishing regularly about two degrees daily as nearly as we could
reckon.

Our appetites were steadily failing, and for two very good reasons: the
unsuitable foods and the impossibility of getting any exercise. There
was no such thing as getting any healthy actions of the body. Nothing
had any weight, and such a thing as physical labour was impossible on
the face of it. I attempted to go through regular courses of gymnastics
at frequent intervals; but as my body and its members weighed nothing,
my muscles found nothing whatever to expend their force upon. I thought
myself worse than Prometheus bound upon his rock, for he could at least
struggle with the birds of prey and pull upon his chains! I might as
well have been utterly paralyzed, and I actually began to fear that I
should lose all my strength, and that my muscles would forget their
cunning.

And our foods could not have been more unsuitable. The light vegetable
diet which this lack of exercise called for was impossible. We had never
had any fresh vegetables or fruits, and our tinned and canned supplies
of these had been rapidly exhausted. We had plenty of solid, meaty foods
and beef essences; but our systems did not require these, and at last
absolutely refused to have them. I lived for days at a time upon beer
and biscuits, and looked longingly at my cigars. I believed I could have
existed comfortably and luxuriously upon smoke alone. My dreams were
filled with visions of ripe, luscious fruits and fresh, crisp
vegetables. When I awoke, I loathed the only foods we had.

I believe I should finally have given up eating, had I not hit upon a
method of exercise at last. It was a sort of rowing or pulling machine,
which I rigged up by running a bar through one end of the doctor's
spring scales, and fastening the other end to the foot of my bed. I
pulled vigorously against this spring for hours at a time, and was
delighted to find that my strength had not left me, and that I could
easily lift as much as these scales had been made to weigh. I remember
the returned appetite with which I enjoyed potted meat and a tinned
pudding, after the first hour of as vigorous exercise as our rarefied
air would permit.

The Moon-spot had disappeared and gone to her eclipse behind the Earth,
when an incident occurred to vary the monotony of our existence a
little, and to suggest to me a diversion that had been hitherto
forbidden. Our supply of water in the outer ta