and went staggering about singing ribald songs, embracing, fighting, dancing, discharging irruptions of profanity, and defying all authority.  Around us struggled a massed and uncontrolled mob—­uncontrolled and likewise uncontrollable, for the whole army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like the rest, by reason of the drink.  We were seized upon by these reckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we, were undistinguishable from the rest—­the demoralization was complete and universal.  In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sank into a stolid and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds rank was forgotten and strange bedfellows made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our souls petrified with the incredible spectacle of that intolerable stinking scavenger, the Tumble-Bug, and the illustrious patrician my Lord Grand Daddy, Duke of Longlegs, lying soundly steeped in sleep, and clasped lovingly in each other’s arms, the like whereof hath not been seen in all the ages that tradition compasseth, and doubtless none shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of it save only we that have beheld the damnable and unholy vision.  Thus inscrutable be the ways of God, whose will be done!

“This day, by order, did the engineer-in-chief, Herr Spider, rig the necessary tackle for the overturning of the vast reservoir, and so its calamitous contents were discharged in a torrent upon the thirsty earth, which drank it up, and now there is no more danger, we reserving but a few drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king and subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum.  What this liquid is has been determined.  It is without question that fierce and most destructive fluid called lightning.  It was wrested, in its container, from its storehouse in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at our feet as she sped by.  An interesting discovery here results.  Which is, that lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent; it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt that releases it from captivity, ignites its awful fires, and so produces an instantaneous combustion and explosion which spread disaster and desolation far and wide in the earth.”

After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon its way.  Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the savants sallied forth to see what they might find.  Their reward was at hand.  Professor Bull Frog discovered a strange tree, and called his comrades.  They inspected it with profound interest.  It was very tall and straight, and wholly devoid of bark, limbs, or foliage.  By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its altitude; Herr Spider measured its circumference at the base and computed the circumference at its top by a mathematical demonstration based upon the warrant furnished by the uniform degree of its taper upward.  It was considered a very extraordinary find; and since it was a tree of a hitherto unknown species, Professor Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned sound, being none other than that of Professor Bull Frog translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had always been the custom with discoverers to perpetuate their names and honor themselves by this sort of connection with their discoveries.