midnight
Peace to thy ghost , most noble marquis ! a King of kings shall pity thee ; and thousands who are yet unborn shall owe their happiness to thee , and have cause to bless the thousands , perhaps , that shall never even know thy name ; but Munchausen 's self shall celebrate thy glory ! _ 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 mechanism 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 prodigious 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 ordeal , and a specimen of my perseverance 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 extravagant dimension , and that a great worm of proportionable enormity had bored a hole in the shell . Through this same entrance I was ushered . It was as large as a coach-door , and I took my seat in the centre , a kind of chair self-balanced without touching anything , like the fancied tomb of Mahomet .