I have never known a time when it was harder to shake loose the feeling of living in a dream as those first few hours we spent on the Moon. The knowledge that we were treading a new world never before visited by Man, added to this extraordinary feeling caused by the gravity, of lightness, of walking on air, made you want every minute to have some one tell you that you were actually awake and in your right senses. For this reason I kept constantly speaking to the Doctor or Chee-Chee or Polynesia—even when I had nothing particular to say. But the uncanny booming of my own voice every time I opened my lips and spoke above the faintest whisper merely added to the dream-like effect of the whole experience. However, little by little, we grew accustomed to it. And certainly there was no lack of new sights and impressions to occupy our minds. Those strange and ever changing colors in the landscape were most bewildering, throwing out your course and sense of direction entirely. The Doctor had brought a small pocket compass with him. But on consulting it, we saw that it was even more confused than we were. The needle did nothing but whirl around in the craziest fashion and no amount of steadying would persuade it to stay still. Giving that up, the Doctor determined to rely on his Moon maps and his own eyesight and bump of locality. He was heading towards where he had seen that tree—which was at the end of one of the ranges. But all the ranges in this section seemed very much alike. The maps did not help us in this respect in the least. To our rear we could see certain peaks which we thought we could identify on the charts. But ahead nothing fitted in at all. This made us feel surer than ever that we were moving toward the Moon’s other side which earthly eyes had never seen. [Illustration: “_The Doctor had brought a compass_”] “It is likely enough, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as we strode along lightly forward over loose sand which would ordinarily have been very heavy going, “that it is _only_ on the other side that water exists. Which may partly be the reason why astronomers never believed there was any here at all.” For my part I was so on the lookout for extraordinary sights that it did not occur to me, till the Doctor spoke of it, that the temperature was extremely mild and agreeable. One of the things that John Dolittle had feared was that we should find a heat that was unbearable or a cold that was worse than Arctic. But except for the difficulty of the strange new quality of the air, no human could have asked for a nicer climate. A gentle steady wind was blowing and the temperature seemed to remain almost constantly the same. We looked about everywhere for tracks. As yet we knew very little of what animal life to expect. But the loose sand told nothing, not even to Chee-Chee, who was a pretty experienced hand at picking up tracks of the most unusual kind.