CHAPTER XIV.

Having given you, by quotation from our chroniclers, a synoptical view of two important discoveries which facilitated our communication with your race, I will now, continued the Dosch, refer you to your own impressions, and the eccentricities of the uninitiated from thought substitution, for the clear demonstration of our auramental powers. Or if, in review, you can recall examples of instinctive spiritual manifestations, you will be able to judge of our method in dealing with the instinctively stupid, partly with hopes of reflecting the extremes of absurdity, and in sub-part for our humorous gratification in tracing the commotional hubbub of selfish instinct in its search for the means of saving grace to rescue folly from its own attaint. You will soon be able to judge of the limits that we are confined to in auramentation. With the instinctively evil, our efforts excite fear and ritualistic prayers for propitiation, and exorcism of supposed inimical agencies foreign to self. But with the good we are able to impart happy encouragement. Selfish excess, in all of its forms, bespeaks a material agency and end, and as this is the god of realization with the gregarious democracy of the gigas, the influence of our auramental efforts—if their source was known—would be denounced with bell and book, as heretically pedantic and puritanical. But goodness imparts an animus joy that affords in life tangible impressions of immortality.

We now will pass to our fourth important epoch, 161noted for the personal introduction of the Dosch Giganteo to Indegatus, Pr?tor of the present City of the Falls. In the process of rehearsal we shall allude to the third or falcon era.

Indegatus, Pr?tor of New Heraclea or more properly Heraclea of the Falls, was a man of indefatigable energy, and at the period of Giganteo’s introduction had just rescued the city from great peril. The peril from the besiegers was in fact less dangerous than the factious dissensions of the populace within the city walls. Aware that idleness was the mother of envy and turmoil, he had caused the latifundium to be divided into garden plots apportioned to the size of each family, for the cultivation of edible roots and cereals. While engaged with his two sons, Unipho and Gnipho, in the cultivation of their land, a bee alighted on the father’s shoulder, attracting his attention from the singularity of its appearance and fearless confidence. Apparently satisfied with the attention it had received it flew to a neighboring flower occupied by a companion. Shortly after he felt a sharp sting on the back of his hand; a quick glance discovered a speck variegated with dark and shining particles, which he was about to brush away, supposing it to be an insect; when something peculiar in its movements attracted a more minute inspection, this resulted in the recognition of a little body possessing the dressed outline of the human form. Startled with superstitious fear from an apparition so manifestly supernal, he called his sons that their stronger eyes might confirm or dispel the impression of his more attenuated sight. After an inspection of a few seconds they burst into a merry peal of laughter, exclaiming in a breath, “It’s a little man in Heraclean armor and sagum, flourishing his sword and spear as if he wished us to understand his signs!”

“My sons,” urged the father with anxious fears, “give more reverend heed! He appears in a guise that 162betokens admonition from the regions of the nether world. Give earnest attention to his direction that the import of his visit may be revealed.”

Gnipho. “The little stranger points to one of my ears as if he wished to be admitted to a hearing?”

Indegatus. “My son, must I admonish you a second time to be more reverend in speech when addressing a being bearing tidings, you know not from whom, or from whence?”

Gnipho. “You have advised us, father, to follow the example of our superiors, and this stranger phantom appears to be in no serious mood, for he laughs at your fears. But I will admit him to an audience, that he may declare the object of his visit!”

Indegatus. “Presume not to take advantage of his levity, for as you are well instructed, and know that when I advised, it was for your dealings with mortality?”

Gnipho. “Now he laughs outright, and my ear resounds with his mirth, as if filled with the infantile chirping of a joyous cricket. But now he speaks!”

Indegatus. “Listen?”

Gnipho. “Yes father. He asks if I can hear him distinctly.”

Indegatus. “Then in virtue of my office as pr?tor and augur, I will address him. Speak Nuntius: What tidings bear you from the spirit world? and from whose realm do you come in this disguise?”

Gnipho. “Again I hear his small voice in the chuckling check of merriment, as if he would fain speak in reply.”

Indegatus. “Then listen, my child, to the message he bears? It surely cannot presage ill if he is in merry mood!”

Gnipho. (Listening.) “He says he is not a spirit, but of mortal birth, like ourselves. But I will repeat his own words. ‘Say to your father, that I have been long acquainted with his goodness, and desire to relieve 163his anxiety for the self-imposed misery of his people. Also to render him other efficient aid in a small way!’”

Indegatus. “Ask him, with grateful thanks, his name, and from whence he came?”

Gnipho. (Laughing.) “He says his name is Giganteo, the Dosch or patriarch of the Manatitlans, a race of animalculans whose country lies six hundred stadia to the southeast of the deserted city of Heraclea.”

Indegatus. “Ask him how he proposes to help us?”

Gnipho. “He says by adding to your knowledge, in a privileged way that enables the small to help the great! He expresses a wish for us to retire with him to the parapet steps of the northern wall, where we shall be comparatively free from the shrill vibrations of the cicada’s winged notes.”

Indegatus. “We will move as he directs.”

Gnipho. “Now that we have complied with his request, he charges me to listen, and treasure all that I hear, that I may repeat it to you.”

Indegatus. “We will keep silence that your attention may not be distracted.”

After an hour’s close attention, Gnipho rehearsed to his father and brother, The Admonitory Request of Giganteo, Dosch of Manatitla. “Your ancestors of old Heraclea trained falcons for hunting, and through their borrowed use the Manatitlans obtained a knowledge of giga and animalculan nations beyond the ocean. We wished to recompense the service by imparting the source of our happiness to the people of Heraclea in return. But tyrannous ingratitude had so blunted affectionate sympathy, that your immediate ancestors alone listened to our warnings. But even they would have shared the common fate, if we had not found among the slaves those capable of judging between the good and evil. The majority of the enslaved were as relentless, as the doomed were 164blind to their impending fate. They had determined that none of their hated oppressors of either city should be spared; but the Manatitlans through the same means that I propose to offer for your aid, foiled the deadly intention of the slaves. While the old Heracleans were reveling in the height of their prosperity, falconry, as with all the pontine races coeval with their transatlantic progenitors, was their favorite pastime. Aeriolus, a worthy successor of Buzzee, visited the mews of old Heraclea, and with equally well devised skill in preparation, conceived the idea of utilizing the swift flight of the falcons and powers of abstinent endurance for crossing the ocean, the shores of which he had visited with the limited powers of the bee volant. Adventuring, with associate volantaphs, trials for their control in hunting, he soon perfected guiding attachments as efficient for directing their movements in flight as those devised for the bee. Selecting the swiftest and strongest he gradually accustomed them to long sustained flights over the ocean, insuring their welcome back to the mews by increased docility—under direction—to the will and lures of the falconer, when in the field. The anticipated difficulties from opposing wind currents, and means of obtaining food sustenance, and disposing of it while in flight, had been successfully overcome by prolonged observations verified with tests. Food was obtained by directing the falcons’ attention to flying fish as objects of prey, which, with parachute aid, they were able, after a little practice under the stimulus of hunger, to devour in mid air.

“In memorial of his success Aeriolus gives in testimony the transcribed after observation. ‘The transition from meat to fish, for a “fasting” flight of instinct, was adopted with far greater avidity than in human acts of ritualistic conformity to mythical injunctions, which we have seen practiced by the sectarian devotees to creeds, as negative compensations for over indulgence of the carnal affections.’

165“When the arrangements of Aeriolus were fully perfected, he and thirty associates, with their wives, bade a hopeful farewell to the people of Manatitla, and started from the lochia (plaza) of Manicul? upon their adventurous air voyage of discovery, with a leading falcon and three followers. Studying to aid the falcons by every possible means they, to their joyful surprise, discovered land on the morning of the fourth day from the start, and, at an early hour thereafter, alighted upon the lofty peak of an island mountain, since known as the Corcovado, a mountain summit of Corvo, one of the Azorean Isles. After regaling the falcons in relief from their lenten diet, they, of their own accord, continued their flight to the mainland. Our joy was much depressed, while passing over the beautiful land scenes, by the fierce cries of giga hosts engaged in battle encounter. In our course eastward, to a country of colored races resembling the aboriginals of our own, not a day passed without our forced observation of a battle scene, with fields and smoking ruins that bespoke the devastation of warful rage.

“Sick and despairing from the constant recurrence of murderous acts of despoliation, we at last reached, in returning, a cluster of islands in the western ocean to the northward of our point of arrival. On the largest island we found a hardy species of falcon, and, with the lure of our own, obtained four. After a few days’ training of our transport addition we returned to the island where we first landed. Anxious to return to our people, and the cheering welcome of loving affection, we only tarried upon the island a sufficient time to accustom our newly acquired birds to devour their food while sustained by the parachute and their wings in mid-rest. Starting, homeward bound, on the morning of the sixtieth sun from the date of our departure from Manicul?, we reached it again on the third day with the first notes of the 166evening anthem of thanksgiving, in which we gratefully joined in our descent to perch.

“Some days were occupied in the public rehearsal of the events and discoveries transpiring in the progress of our voyage; the resulting issue proving a source of congratulation, nathless, our disappointment from the unfavorable prospect afforded for an affectionate reception by the animalculan residents of the many countries over which we passed, from the effect of giga example. After many repetitions of the voyage, it was decided that colonization in the chief cities of Europe and Asia offered the only means for the effectual regeneration of the animalculan races for a happy appreciation of our exampled resources of loving affection. When the proposition for colonistic volunteers was proclaimed it received such a general sympathetic prompting of affectionate obligation, that every Manatitlan held himself and family in readiness for the service. As it was necessary, for self-defense, to have a majority of giantescoes and mediums, to overawe treacherous designs, the required number for colonizing Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, were obtained by lot. When, on the eve of departure, the Dosch advised them to live apart from the natives of the cities, and in self dependence upon their own exertions for support; but to receive all healthy children of the required age, placed at their disposal for the Manatitlan term of education. The emigrants numbered among their volunteers representatives of all the mechanical branches of artisan labor, and especially those well instructed in the departments of indestructible house building and defensible vestments. So that little fear was entertained for their safety, as they could with ease repel the largest armies of tits that could be mustered. But their chief reliance was upon a sturdy adherence to their native habits and customs, yet ever open for the reciprocation of affectionate goodness. They were also admonished 167to make all possible application for the speedy acquisition of lingual idioms spoken in the different countries of their sojourn for future availment. Also, whenever favorable opportunity offered for the cultivation of giga goodness, to use their privilege of auramentation and thought substitution for encouragement and fruition. These general directions were improvised more for encouragement than from actual knowledge of the process best adapted for the controversion of habits and customs opposed to affectionate association and self-government.

“The first appearance of the Manatitlans in the cities of their destination attracted universal awe and curiosity on the part of the resident animalculan tits; for but few of the natives reached in stature the medium size. Their sudden and mysterious advent, gigantic size, quiet demeanor, and the great affection that they manifested towards each other, and in all the relations of life, proved a source of emulous wonder and admiration with the good, and a rankling, envious source of disdain to the evil minded.

“Selecting their sites for residence from the advantages of inaccessibility to giga approach, arable soil, and capabilities for irrigation, their habitations were quickly constructed, with a cleanly elegance of adornment that added a new element of wonder to the lazy imaginations of instinct, in the superstitious belief that they were visitors under the patronage of divine agency. With these introductory advantages, which the colonists disclaimed to be other than those within the reach of all grades of mortality, which their appearance and vocation were intended to impart, the schools were organized, and flooded to overflowing with applications for admission. The monthly visitations of the children’s parents confirmed the belief that mission was under the special direction of the Godhead.

“The unselfish warmth of their children’s affection 168opened to their view a source of realized happiness that truly bespoke the impressions of immortality, from the continued joy imparted in anticipation of renewal. The reputation of our advent, from the representative example of our neophytes, soon extended our influence to remote animalculan dependencies, so that the extension of our colonistic schools well nigh drained Manatitla of its effective resources of vitality. In the course of a few centuries, dating from the Manatitlan colonistic advent in the countries of the eastern continent, the system of education introduced had been generally adopted, under our supervision, by the animalculan races; notwithstanding the instinctive opposition of the chivalric portion, who followed the ancestral prestige derived from the preferred imitation of giga military school organizations, designed for the classical attraction of the senses with tinsel display, and ‘glorious’ din of martial music.

“Meanwhile your Heraclean ancestors had completed their third wall of circumvallation, and had extended their predatory excursions to the nether ocean beyond the dominions of the Yunka Machicas (Alta Peruvians) into those under the rule of Mauna Chusoes (children of the sun), whose women were esteemed very beautiful, being compared by a Heraclean chronicler of the period, ‘to all that was lovely in person, with a complexion that blended upon a surface of white, the reflected rays of burnished copper and gold.’ This comparison conveys the rich expression of metallic voluptuousness so much coveted by your Roman ancestry. These ravishing toys of passion heralded the end. Your immediate ancestors had obtained an asylum in your present City of the Falls. ‘The end came and with it our hopes of communication with our colonies beyond the ocean.’

“Although aware of the approaching catastrophe, we had supposed the falcons would be spared, but 169the Indians included everything living in the sum of their hatred that had contributed in any way to the oppressive pleasures of their taskmasters, unfortunately including all but eight of the falcons in the massacre, sacrificing with them some of our best volantaphs. The eight were employed in transporting our Mouthpat neighbors to Rome, Gaul, and Iberian Asturias; but it was hard to keep in advance of their reproductive tendencies with so small a fleet.

“There was, however, a slight improvement in getting rid of the old stock, but the Dosch little thought of the possible injurious effect the Mouthpats were likely to exert in retarding the progressive prosperity of our colonists. But when, in the course of a few years they were deprived of their last falcon, the Manatitlans were led by the troublesome dispositions of their neighbors to reflect upon the evil ingraft they had imposed upon the labors of their people abroad. This source of anxiety has been so greatly magnified in the course of centuries which have passed since the loss of our last falcon, that, in our distress, we now appeal to your suffering sympathies for aid in reclaiming those of the descendants of our carrier breed who have, from ancestral habits of association with your race, made their eryemews within the circuit of your cinctus walls. In like return, when your sons and daughters have redeemed for us the means of more safe and long sustained flight, we shall be better able to render you service against your enemies.”

Indegatus. “I have listened to my son’s transmission of your request, and we will thankfully comply with your desire!”

Giganteo. “That you may be enabled to effect the good I contemplate, it will be necessary for you to restrict your confidence to those of your family who have arrived at the understanding age of discretion. For with your people’s knowledge of our existence and 170communication with you, our efforts would be rendered void.”

Indegatus. “We can readily understand the many ways in which its publicity would compromise your endeavors to render us aid, and you can rely upon our watchful discretion and submission to your direction. But I would wish to be resolved upon a subject all important for the fulfillment of our higher responsibility? Your discursive narration of events in your locomotive attainments, has implied a reliance upon a higher source of aid than our gods. It would appear that you claim for creation a sole Creator, who has bestowed upon mankind a duality, compounded of instinct for the support and prompting of material manifestations of the body, with an affectionate guide in readiness for an alliance to perfect individuality for a happy earthly initiation of the animus into the blissful current of immortality? This has reflected through the darkness of our customary usages a path of light, most cheering in prospect of immortality! Do you deny the existence of Gods whose favors are to be propitiated with acceptable prayers and sacrifices?”

Giganteo. “We have within ourselves all sufficient evidence of a supreme Creator, who has created mankind with a privileged superiority from an alliance with affectionate purity and goodness. A knowledge of this optional endowment we have derived from its practical observance in exampled association, founded upon an educated preference above, and for the affectionate direction of our bodies self-sustaining instincts. Of our method of education, which adapts the body’s instincts for the allied entertainment of animus purity and goodness for affectionate anticipations of immortality, we will practically instruct you in season for adoption.”

Indegatus. “Then you not only deny the existence of our Gods, but erect an altar within the body for the sacrifice of animal passions, in purification for the 171reception of a proffered alliance with affectionate goodness?”

Giganteo. “Your quick comprehension surprises me! It will, however, lead you to a ready appreciation of our system of education for insuring allied reciprocation.”

Indegatus. “The cause of my augur sight is that my parents offered with example a happy impression of attainments in kind with those you describe. But as the hour of reflection approaches I will ask you to join us, that you may be refreshed, for the continuation of your suggestive history, with its application to our needs under the direction of your people!”

Giganteo. “Gratias, for your kind proffer! But I must not allow my appetite to act the parasite in your famishing need. My wife occupies the howdah of the phaeton, and has brought at least a month’s provision, so that in our plenty we are better able to share with you, and I should, at least in the form of courtesy, have asked you to test Leoptilea’s skill in the culinary art; for I can assure you, she has an excellent reputation in the art of appetizing food combinations.”

Gnipho and his brother, with all their restraining efforts, could not refrain from a hearty outburst of merriment at this courteous sally of the Dosch, whose commissary stores for a month’s supply for himself, wife, companions, and volantaphs, were the scarcely perceptible burden of a bee. Indegatus catching the infection, the trio startled the hereditary silence of the latifundium with the unusual echoes of jocund laughter, causing the distant laborers to suspend their occupations in wondering surprise at the vent of emotions which had been so long suppressed with the rule of discontent and anxiety. The cause of this ebullition lent his mitey chirrup to swell the chorus, and incite its continuance with Gnipho. Changing to the ear of Indegatus after the more urgent 172emotions had subsided, the Dosch complimented him for his well preserved sympathetic mirthful tones of voice, expressing in commendation his surprise that the long disuse of mirth provocatives had not caused the resonance of his intonations to become dry and wheezy. Then, in continuation, he said, “Now that I have gained your kindly appreciation seasoned with the genial sympathy of a hearty laugh, I will rejoin my family while you are absent with yours during the heat of noontide.”