Preparations for the Baron's expedition into Africa—Description of his chariot; the beauties of its interior decorations; the animals that drew it, and the mechanism¹ of the wheels.  
Everything being concluded, and having received my instructions for the voyage, I was conducted by the illustrious Hilaro Frosticos, the Lady Fragrantia, and a prodigious² crowd of nobility, and placed sitting upon the summit of the whale's bones at the palace; and having remained in this situation for three days and three nights, as a trial ordeal³, and a specimen⁴ of my perseverance⁵ and resolution, the third hour after midnight they seated me in the chariot of Queen Mab. It was a prodigious dimension, large enough to contain more stowage than the tun of Heidelberg, and globular like a hazel-nut: in fact, it seemed to be really a hazel-nut grown to a most extravagant⁶ dimension, and that a great worm of proportionable enormity had bored a hole in the shell. Through this same entrance I was ushered⁷. It was as large as a coach-door, and I took my seat in the centre, a kind of chair self-balanced without touching⁸ anything, like the fancied tomb of Mahomet. The whole interior surface of the nutshell appeared a luminous⁹ representation of all the stars of heaven, the fixed¹⁰ stars, the planets, and a comet. The stars were as large as those worn by our first nobility, and the comet, excessively brilliant, seemed as if you had assembled all the eyes of the beautiful girls in the kingdom, and combined them, like a peacock's plumage, into the form of a comet—that is, a globe, and a bearded tail to it, diminishing gradually to a point. This beautiful constellation¹¹ seemed very sportive and delightful¹². It was much in the form of a tadpole¹³! and, without ceasing, went, full of playful giddiness, up and down, all over the heaven on the concave surface of the nutshell. One time it would be at that part of the heavens under my feet, and in the next minute would be over my head. It was never at rest, but for ever going east, west, north, or south, and paid no more respect to the different worlds than if they were so many lanterns without reflectors. Some of them he would dash against and push out of their places; others he would burn up and consume to ashes: and others again he would split into fritters, and their fragments would instantly take a globular form, like spilled quicksilver, and become satellites to whatever other worlds they should happen to meet with in their career. In short, the whole seemed an epitome¹⁴ of the creation, past, present, and future; and all that passes among the stars during one thousand years was here generally ............