A Voyage to the Moon

by George Tucker

  CHAPTER X.

  _The travellers visit a gentleman farmer, who is a great projector: hisbreed of cattle: his apparatus for cooking: he is takendangerously ill._

  After we had gone about half a mile farther, our attention was arrestedby a gate of very singular character. It was extremely ingenious in itsstructure, and, among other peculiarities, it had three or four latches,for children, for grown persons, for those who were tall and those whowere short, and for the right hand as well as the left. In the act ofopening, it was made to crush certain berries, and the oil they yielded,was carried by a small duct to the hinge, which was thus made to turneasily, and was prevented from creaking. While we were admiring itsmechanism, an elderly man, rather plainly dressed, on a zebra in lowcondition, rode up, and showed that he was the owner of the mansion towhich the gate belonged, and that he was not displeased with thecuriosity we manifested. We found him both intelligent and obliging. Heinformed us that he was an experimental farmer; and when he learnt thatwe were strangers, and anxious to inform ourselves of the state ofagriculture in the country, he very civilly invited us to take our nextmeal with him. Our walk having now made us hungry and fatigued, wegladly accepted of his hospitality; whereupon he alighted, and walkedwith us to his lodgings.

  He was very communicative of his modes of cultivation and management,but chiefly prided himself on his success in improving the size of hiscattle. He informed us that he had devoted sixteen years of his life tothis object, and had then in his farm-yard a buffalo nearly as heavy asthree of the ordinary size. His practice was to kill all the younganimals which were not uncommonly large and thrifty; to cram those hekept, with as much food as they would eat, and to tempt their appetitesby the variety of their nourishment, as well as of the modes ofpreparing it.

  "All this," said he, "costs a great deal, it is true; but I am paid forit by the additional price." I was struck with this notable triumph ofindustry and skill in the goodly art of husbandry--that art which Ivenerate above every other; and I was all anxiety to receive from himsome instructions which I might, in case I should have the good fortuneto get safely back, communicate to my friends on Long-Island, who hadnever been able even to double the common size, and who boasted greatlyof that: but a hesitating look, and a few inquiries on the part of mysly friend, checked my enthusiasm.

  "Have you always," he asked, "had the same number of acres in grain andgrass under your new and old system?"

  "Pretty nearly," says the other. "My new breed, however, though fewer,consume more than their predecessors."

  "How many head did you formerly sell in a year?"

  "About thirty."

  "How many do you now sell?"

  "Though for some years I have not sold more than nine or ten, I expectto exceed that number in another year."

  "Which you expect will yield you more than the thirty did formerly?"

  "Certainly; because such meat as mine commands an extraordinary price."

  "So long," replied the Brahmin, "as this is novelty, you may receive apart of the price which men are ever ready to pay for it; but as soon asothers profit by your example, your meat falls to the ordinary rate, andthen, if I understand you aright, as you will have somewhat less inquantity than you formerly had, your gross receipts will be less, to saynothing of your additional labour and expense."

  "But who has the skill," quickly rejoined the other, "of which I canboast? and who would take the same trouble, although they hadthe skill?"

  "But stop here a moment," said our host, "till I go to see how my lastimproved oil-cake is relished by my cattle."

  The Brahmin then turning to me, said,--"This gentleman may, indeed,improve his fortune by the business of a grazier; but the same pains andunremitting attention would always be sure of a liberal reward, thoughthe system on which they were exerted was not among the best. Nothing,my dear Atterley, is more true than the saying of your wise book--_thatall flesh is grass;_ and it always takes the same quantity of one tomake a given quantity of the other, whether that given quantity may bein the form of a single individual, or two or three. But in the formercase, great labour is required to force nature beyond her ordinarylimits, and the same labour must be unceasingly kept up, or she willcertainly relapse to her original dimensions. This system may do, as ourhost here tells us it actually does, for the moon, but it is not suitedto our earth. If, however, you are ambitious of a name among thespeculative men of your country, this little stone," added he, stooping,and picking up a small stone from the ground, "will answer your purposequite as well as any improvement in husbandry. It is precisely of thesame species as those which we threw over in our aerial voyages, andwhich, though correctly called moon-stones by the vulgar, (who areoftener right than the learned suppose,) some of the westernphilosophers declared to have been gravitated in the atmosphere."

  "And is this really the origin," said I, "of that strange phenomenon,which has furnished so much matter of speculation to the sages both ofEurope and America?"

  "Nothing is more true," replied he. "These stones are common to theearth and to the moon; and some of those which have been so carefullyanalyzed by your most celebrated chemists, and pronounced different fromany known mineral production of the earth, were small fragments of avery common rock in the mountains of Burma. In our first voyages we hadtaken some of them with us as ballast; and those which we first threwover, we afterwards learnt from the public journals, fell in France,some of the others fell in India, but the greater number in the ocean.Those which have fallen at other times, have been real fossils of themoon, and either such stones as this I hold in my hand, or such metallicsubstances as are repelled from that body, and attracted towards theearth; and it is the force with which they strike the earth, which firstsuggested the idea of a thunder-bolt.

  "Our party were greatly amused at the disputations of a learned societyin Europe, in which they undertook to give a mathematical demonstrationthat they could not be thrown from a volcano of the earth, nor from themoon, but were suddenly formed in the atmosphere. I should as soonbelieve that a loaf of bread could be made and baked in the atmosphere."

  Finding that our landlord prided himself on his interior management, aswell as on that without doors, we expressed a wish to see some of hishousehold improvements. He readily consented, and conducted us at onceinto his kitchen, and showed us inventions and contrivances out ofnumber, for saving fuel, and meat, and labour; in short, for savingevery thing but money. The large room into which he carried us, appearedas a vast laboratory, from the infinite variety of pots, pans, skillets,knives, forks, ladles, mortars, sieves, funnels, and other utensils ofmetal, glass, pottery, and wood. The steam which he used for cooking,was carried along a pipe under a succession of kettles and boilers,descending in regular gradation, by which a great saving of fuel waseffected; and, to perfect this part of the apparatus, the pipe could beremoved, to give place to one of the size suited to the occasion.

  His seven-guest pipe was now in use. The wood, which was all cut to thesame length, and channelled out to admit the free passage of the air,was then duly placed in the stove, and set on fire; but the heat notpassing very readily through all the sinuosities of the pipe, he orderedhis head cook to screw on his exhauster. The man, in less than tenminutes, unscrewed a plate at the farther end, and fixed on an air-pump,made for the purpose, on which the door of the stove suddenly slammedto. Our host saw the accident, and hurrying to open the stove, fell overa heap of channelled logs, and cut a gash in his forehead. The cook ranto help him up; and after he was on his legs, and his forehead wiped,the stove was opened, when the fire, which had been deprived of itsaliment, was entirely extinguished. I thought he was hardly sorry forthe accident, as it afforded him an occasion of showing how ingeniouslyhe kindled a fire. He had an electric machine brought to him, by meansof which he set fire to a few grains of gunpowder; this lighted sometinder, which again ignited spirits, whose blaze reached the lowerextremity of his lamp. Taking the precaution of keeping the stove openthis time, the
air was again exhausted at the farther end of the pipe,and in a little time the flame was seen to ascend even to the air-pump,and to scorch the parts made of wood; whereupon I saw a glow of triumphon his face, which amply compensated him for his wound and vexation.There was a grand machine for roasting, that carried the fire round themeat, the juices of which, he said, by a rotary motion, would be thrownto the surface, and either evaporate or be deteriorated. Here was alsohis digestor, for making soup of rams' horns, which he assured mecontained a good deal of nourishment, and the only difficulty was inextracting it. He next showed us his smoke-retractor, which received thesmoke near the top of the chimney, and brought it down to be burnt overagain, by which he computed that he saved five cords and a half of woodin a year. The fire which dressed his victuals, pumped up, by means of asteam engine, water for the kitchen turned one or more spits, as well astwo or three mills for grinding pepper, salt, &c.; and then, by aspindle through the wall, worked a churn in the dairy, and cleaned theknives: the forks, indeed, were still cleaned by hand; but he said hedid not despair of effecting this operation in time, by machinery. Imentioned to him our contrivance of silver forks, to lessen this labour;but he coldly remarked, that he imagined science was in its infancywith us.

  He informed us that he had been ten years in completing this ingeniousmachine; and certainly, when it was in full operation, I never sawexultation and delight so strongly depicted in any human face. Thevarious sounds and sights, that met the ear and eye, in rapidsuccession, still farther worked on his feelings, and heightened hisraptures. There was such a simmering, and hissing, and bubbling ofboiled, and broiled, and fried--such a whirling, and jerking, andcreaking of wheels, and cranks, and pistons--such clouds of steam, andvapours, and even smoke, notwithstanding all of the latter that wasburnt,--that I almost thought myself in some great manufactory.

  After having suffered as much as we could well bear, from the heat andconfined air of this laboratory of eatables, and passed the propernumber of compliments on the skill and ingenuity they displayed, weascended to his hall, to partake of that feast, to prepare which we hadseen all the elements and the mechanical powers called into action.There were a few of his city acquaintances present, besides ourselves:but whether it was owing to the effect of the steam from the dishes onour stomachs, or that this scientific cookery was not suited to ourunpractised palates, I know not, but we all made an indifferent repast,except our host, who tasted every dish, and seemed to relish them all.

  After sitting some time at table, conversing on the progress of science,its splendid achievements, and the pleasing prospects which it yet dimlyshowed in the future, our hospitable entertainer, perceiving we werefatigued with the labours of the day, invited us to take our next_lallaneae_, or sleep, with him, for which hospitality we felt verygrateful. We were then shown to a room, in which there were marks of thesame fertile invention, in saving labour and promoting convenience; butwe were too sleepy to take much notice of them. Our beds were filledwith air, which is quite as good as feathers, except that when theleather covering gets a hole in it, from ripping, or other accidents, itloses its elasticity with its air--an accident which happened to me thisvery night; for a mouse having gnawed the leather where the housemaid'sgreasy fingers had left a mark, I sunk gently down, not to soft repose,but on the hard planks, where I uncomfortably lay until the bell warnedus to rise for breakfast.

  As soon as I was dressed, I walked out into a large garden, and, as thesun was not yet so high as to make it sultry, was enjoying the balmysweetness of the air, and the flowering shrubs, which in beauty andfragrance almost exceeded those of India, when I saw a servant run bythe garden wall, enter the stable, and bring out a zebra. On inquiringthe cause, I was made to understand that our noble host was takensuddenly ill. I immediately returned to the house, and found thedomestics running to and fro, and manifesting the greatest anxiety, aswell as hurry, in their looks. I went into the Brahmin's room, and foundhim dressed. He went out, and after some time, informed me that our kindhost had a violent _cholera morbus_, in consequence of the various kindsof food with which he had overloaded his stomach at dinner; that heconsidered himself near his last end, and was endeavouring to arrangehis affairs for the event.

  I could not help meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life,when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscioususefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, withthe agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest andmost callous heart--when it must quit this state of being for another,of which it knows so little, and over which fear and doubt throw a gloomthat hope cannot entirely dispel.