Page:The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 (IA TheGreatMoonHoaxOf18351859).pdf/38

Rh mits of the range of bills by which the latter is nearly surrounded. We ardently wished that all the world could view & scene so strangely grand, and our pulse beat high with the hope of one day exhibiting it to our countrymen in some part of our native land. But we were at length compelled to destroy our picture, as a whole, for the purpose of magnifying its parts for scientific inspection. Oar plain was of course immediately covered with the ruby front of this mighty amphitheatre, its tall figures, leaping cascades, and rugged caverns. As its almost interminable sweep was measured off upon the canvass, we frequently saw long lines of some yellow metal hanging from the crevices of the horizontal strata in wild net-work, or straight pendant branches. We of course concluded that this was virgin gold, and we had no assay-master to 'prove to the contrary. On searching the plain, over which we had observed the woods roving in all the shapes of clouds in the sky, we were again delighted with the discovery of animals. The first observed was a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory, and standing in perpendicular parallel to each other. Its body was like that of the deer, but its fore-legs were most disproportionally long, and its tail, which was very bushy and of a snowy whiteness, curled high over its rump, and hang two or three feet by its side. Its colors were bright bay and white in brindled patches, clearly defined, but of no regular form. It was found only in pairs, in spaces between the woods, and we had no opportunity of witnessing its speed or habits. But a few minutes only elapsed before three specimens of another animal appeared, so well known to us all that we fairly laughed at the recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant a land. They were neither more nor less than three good large sheep, which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire, or the shambles of Leadenhall-market. With the utmost scrutiny, we could find no mark of distinction between these and those of our native boil; they had not even the appendage over the eyes, which I have described as common to lunar quadrupeds. Presently they appeared in great numbers, and on reducing the lenses, we found them in flocks over a great part