For about the fourth Part of an Hour (as near as I cou’d guess, considering the great Consternation I must be in) I was in total Darkness, and in the very Bosom of Night; when at length a thin small Light, like Twilight, broke in upon me, and I beheld at last a bright serene Firmament. I ignorantly thought therefore, that either by the Repercussion or opposite Action of the subterraneous Air, or that by the Force of some contrary Wind, I had been thrown back, and that the Cave had vomited me up again. But neither the Sun which I then survey’d, nor the Heavens, or heavenly Bodies, were at all known to me, since they were considerably less than those of ours. I concluded therefore, that either all that whole Mass of new Heavens existed solely in Imagination, excited by the Vertigo my Head had undergone, or else that I was arriv’d at the Mansions of the Blessed. But this last Opinion I soon rejected with Scorn, since I view’d myself arm’d with a Harpoon, and dragging a mighty Length of Rope after me, knowing full well, that a Man just going to Paradise has no Occasion for a Rope or a Harpoon, and that the cœlestial Inhabitants cou’d not possibly be pleas’d with a Dress, which look’d as if I intended, after the Example of the _Titans_, to take Heaven by Violence, and to expel them from their divine Abodes. At last after the maturest Consideration, I fell to imagining, that I was sunk into the subterraneous World, and that the Conjectures of those Men are right who hold the Earth to be concave, and that within the Shell or outward Crust there is another lesser Globe, and another Firmament adorn’d with lesser Sun, Stars, and Planets. And the Event discover’d that this Conjecture was right. That Violence with which I was hurry’d headlong, had now continued for some Time, when at length I perceived that it languish’d gradually in Proportion to my Approach towards a certain Planet, which was the first Thing I met with. That same Planet increas’d so sensibly in Bulk or Magnitude, that at last, without much Difficulty, I cou’d plainly distinguish Mountains, Vallies, and Seas, through that thicker Atmosphere with which it was surrounded. —_Sicut avis quæ circum littora, circum Piscosos scopulos humilis volat æquora juxta, Haud aliter terras inter cœlumque volabam._