CHAPTER II.
The next day, when I awoke, on quitting the ordinary reception room of the faï-ting, I was suddenly lost in a forest of dry wood. All around me was an inextricable confusion of poles and masts. These dead trees, adorned like those which are planted throughout France on days of general rejoicing, had on them, instead of leaves, standards and flags of all colours, and they seemed to grow naturally on the sterile and changing soil. This sinuous plain was the magnificent realisation of a celebrated canard, which formerly took flight from New York and went round the world: it was the floating isle with its towns, its fields, its heights, and valleys. Callery, who was with me, enjoyed my stupefaction; he was the more charmed at my amazement, as I am not easily astonished when travelling:
"How shall we get out of here?" I asked him.
"Be easy," replied he; " I have sent an express to Pan-se-Chen to announce our arrival, and he will not fail to send a mandarin boat to us."
"Unless your messenger has wings, like the one from the ark, I do not see which way he can have escaped."
