just like a map, where land, sea, lakes, rivers, mountains, and the like
were perfectly distinguishable; and having some knowledge of geography,
I was at no loss to determine what part of the globe I was in.
Whilst I was contemplating this wonderful prospect a dreadful howling
suddenly began all around me, and in a moment I was invested by
thousands of small, black, deformed, frightful looking creatures, who
pressed me on all sides in such a manner that I could neither move hand
or foot: but I had not been in their possession more than ten minutes
when I heard the most delightful music that can possibly be imagined,
which was suddenly changed into a noise the most awful and tremendous,
to which the report of cannon, or the loudest claps of thunder could
bear no more proportion than the gentle zephyrs of the evening to the
most dreadful hurricane; but the shortness of its duration prevented all
those fatal effects which a prolongation of it would certainly have been
attended with.
The music commenced, and I saw a great number of the most beautiful
little creatures seize the other party, and throw them with great
violence into something like a snuff-box, which they shut down, and one
threw it away with incredible velocity; then turning to me, he said they
whom he had secured were a party of devils, who had wandered from their
proper habitation; and that the vehicle in which they were enclosed
would fly with unabating rapidity for ten thousand years, when it would
burst of its own accord, and the devils would recover their liberty
and faculties, as at the present moment. He had no sooner finished this
relation than the music ceased, and they all disappeared, leaving me in
a state of mind bordering on the confines of despair.
When I had recomposed myself a little, and looking before me with
inexpressible pleasure, I observed that the eagles were preparing to
light on the peak of Teneriffe: they descended on the top of the rock,
but seeing no possible means of escape if I dismounted determined me
to remain where I was. The eagles sat down seemingly fatigued, when the
heat of the sun soon caused them both to fall asleep, nor did I long
resist its fascinating power. In the cool of the evening, when the sun
had retired below the horizon, I was roused from sleep by the eagle
moving under me; and having stretched myself along its back, I sat up,
and reassumed my travelling position, when they both took wing, and
having placed themselves as before, directed their course to South
America. The moon shining bright during the whole night, I had a fine
view of all the islands in those seas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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