CHAPTER XVIII.

Coliseo, departmental colonial settlement, or chief city of Romalia, on the fifth of Ratu, of the one hundred and eighth century of the Manatitlan era, decio multiplex.

Revered Advisor:—In accordance with your request, I send you an account of a visit, which in company with the chief and our associates, was made to the temporal dominions of the Mouthpat pope, Innocent First, for the rescue of Roman tits, who had been kidnapped on their return from the monthly visitation of the Coliseo schools. The object of the pope, prompting this human theft, was to effect intimidation by offering them as a public sacrifice, or burnt offering to the god of their worship, after the manner of the Tenockitlans, Manchees, and other civilized nations of Mauna Luna. The vatican, or stronghold of this Animalculan sect, styled Christians, is situated on the leads of the Giga church San Lorenzo, formerly occupied by our colonists, and by them transferred to the Mouthpats as a leasehold to be secured in perpetuation for the consideration of reciprocal good will. The church of San Lorenzo, as it is now called, was remodeled by the present Giga Christian dynasty, from the temple of Faustina, by Antoninus, surnamed the Pious, as a distinctive memorial of regard for his wife. In the process of renovation required for the new form of mythological worship, the outer walls, with their architectural ornaments, were left unmolested above the entablature of the cornice, which upon the inner face, looking out upon 209the leads, contained the sacred dove-cotes or cells. These the Manatitlan colonists had appropriated by ejecting the unbaptized usurpers of the pagan oracles, which in turn they relinquished to the Mouthpat sympathizers of the new ritualists succeeding to the interior of the edifice. The roof was accessible to the Animalculans by a jutting rear X buttress erected for the support of the inner incline of the lateral walls. For a long time the cells were jointly occupied by the Manatitlans and dove descendants of the legitimate Giga divinity of the church, who found themselves controlled in flight by a mysterious power adverse to their natural inclinations and gregarious flock associations. These could have been made excellent substitutes for falcons, but like all of the animal species that congregate in flocks and herds, they were subject to unclean parasites, rendering them obnoxious to purity, which caused their ejection by a process as mysterious to their comprehension, as that which had previously controlled their flight. Ten months previous to our arrival the Giga pope had announced a tourney, or ‘passage-at-arms,’ upon a scale of unprecedented magnificence, for the advancement of a crusade against a race of Moslems, who exacted tribute from Christian pilgrims on their way to the holy sepulchre of their creed. The chief honor to be awarded the victor, was the command of the forces levied for the holy war. But each of the contestants was obliged to offer for the acceptance of the king herald, irrefragable proof of his blood nobility, and faith in the immaculate conception, pope’s infallibility, and Catholic efficacy of saving grace. We arrived in Rome four days previous to the one designated for the grand ceremonial opening of the Animalculan court of valor, which, as a special distinction, was to be honored with the pope’s presence and arbitration. As the descendants of the Mouthpats have not improved in the industrial habits of self-devisement in 210the economy of time for useful purposes, we were able to secure our position on the roof balance of the portico without being observed. Directly opposite is the vatican, or oracular palace of the Pope Innocent. This is one of the larger dove-cotes which had been finished in silicoth by the Manatitlan colonists as an anthemeque, or place of public assemblage, and is now occupied by his “holiness” as the dove successor divinity of the roof. An hour or more after our arrival, the familiars with their working aids commenced the labors of preparation, and from the character of their employments it is evident that there will be no cooing notes of sympathy expended in behalf of suffering victims.

In the northern gutter of the leads the lists are erected. The galleries rise in backward ascent from the arena. The terraced gradations are adapted to rank founded upon material possessions; the lowest are intended for the nobility, or landed proprietors; the next grade is allotted to the rich in gold and silver, or materials in trade, these are styled merchant commoners; the highest or galley, the tribune informs me, is destined for the gods, as the rabble are facetiously called. If the terms of expression interest you, their generic source can be traced in the Chinese and Babylonish manuscripts of Animalculans deposited by our old travelers in the archives of Manicul?; from them you will be able to judge of the progressive attainments of the Romans. Our position will enable us to see and hear all that passes.

The canopy of the ladies gallery is of richly woven material, contributed by a kabulistanee convert to the papal creed; as you will not find an equivalent for the word “lady” and its co-appellative “gentleman” in any of our indigenous writings, I will give you the Coliseo tribune’s version. “A lady in Giga acceptation, is a woman who employs, not only her own, but the time of her servants in the adornment of her body 211with cumbersome material, greatly in excess of her requirements for comfort and comeliness; in addition she does not hesitate to apply pigments to her face. These aids are only limited by the metallic means of supply; and, as your judgment will decide, they detract not alone from personal purity, but render the persons of the Giga females, in fact, repulsive. Still auramentation, with the confirmation of the senses in support of our labors, has proved utterly powerless for the successful stay of the fantastic follies that follow in train from the gratification of woman’s envious rivalry. The term chevalier, or gentleman, is still more vague in acceptation, and application with the Gigas. Like virtue, conscience, morality, and saving grace, the meaning depends upon arbitrary intonations of the voice in application, without true intrinsic value for the expression of means or substance realization. If you, or at least a tit, should ascend to the tier that will be occupied by the gods, and suddenly accost one of the meanest and most blasphemous of the noisy rabble, with the words, “You are no chevalier, or gentleman,” you would be saluted in return with a blow or volley of vile epithets too horrible for exampled utterance.”

He was about to give farther proofs of the illusive beguilements of Giga usage in word conversation, but was interrupted by the blasts of sackbuts, and rumble of kettle-drums, from the tents of the challengers, which were partially concealed by a flowery bosque, which had its source from soil and seeds deposited by the doves. These signals quickened the movements of some blackamoors who were decorating the canopied galleries set apart for the ladies, the pope and his apostolic cardinals. Soon a living stream of Animalculans began to deploy in descent from the buttress turrets of the parapets, and when within hail commenced a series of pantomimic imitations of the blacks’ deformities, accompanied with gibing words, 212as if in cruel preparation for the scenes of the day. Notwithstanding the serious nature of our mission, enhanced with the fear of after self-censure, we could not withhold our instinctive sympathy when the Ethiopians discomfited their democratic Mouthpat assailants, who showed themselves in every respect inferior to their swarthy opponents. The tilting touches of the blackamoors’ tongues, often caused the Mouthpats to wince and brandish their thorn sticks with the well known hereditary twirl, as if they desired to relieve the smart with customary material arguments. The arrival of the higher orders of Animalculan life, mounted on gayly caparisoned blatidean roaches, beetles, and ants, created a diversion with less freedom in expression, yet the democratic tendency of crowds to turbulence was still apparent, for the knights in their turn became subject to the natural flow of depreciation, but in tones subdued in measured prominence to a comparison within and without the reach of the subject’s lance. Finally the ladies were passed in review with rabberly freedom, but ever mindful of the length of the knight attendants’ spears. And lastly, after the beauty, dress, and palfrey management of the ants by the ladies, had been freely discussed, the squires and grooms in livery, received the dredged overplus of scurrilous scoffs and taunts. When the flourish of trumpets and beadle cries reminded them of the more important calls of selfishness for the rival displacement of early comers, we had the disagreeable opportunity of witnessing a scene of uproar that baffles description. During the struggle for places the bailiffs’ staffs were used with a freedom that denoted the lowest degree of servile subjection on the part of the herd.

While forced to listen to the vile language of the “plebs,” we were constrained to hold in the balance of thought the questionable advantage of speech for the advancement of purity and goodness, for as yet, 213an affectionate word, or one of sympathy had not been spoken within my hearing. The Coliseo tribune, who acted as my mentor, informed me that the Giga children of Rome lisped oaths with the first impressions of speech, and with the adventure of sentences used them for anathematizing imprecations in demands for selfish gratification. The pursuivants’ calls, “Aller laisser!” Gallic Latin, of imperative command for space, again attracted our attention to the lists, and from the commotion, it was easy to perceive that the curiosity of the vast assemblage was on the tiptoe of expectation. The prolonged flourish of trumpets, with the clashing rattle and rumble of cymbals and kettle-drums, prepared us for the heralded announcement of the approach of the accredited knights who were to lead as challengers and challenged in the jousts for the awards of honor. While passing in review before the ladies’ and popes’ pavilions, we had an excellent opportunity for comparing the relative intelligence of those representing the different nationalities and septs.

The first group were Austro-Germans; these were large in size and heavy in feature and form, with a pervading vis inertia in their sluggish movements. But to my surprise, the tribune informed me that in ritualistic gymnastry, spear, and sword exercise, they were esteemed the leading nation, although rarely successful in their encounters, as they were too slow and methodical in delivering their blows, and as a general result, they were unroached while deciding upon their point of attack. Calling my attention to their movements, I could not fail to observe the sluggish halo that seemed to invest both riders and cockroach steeds; the latter, he said, grew to an enormous size in Germany, as in omnivorous habits they assimilated with their national contemporaries of the human species, whose intelligence was an instinctive reflection from stomach distention to the brain. Notwithstanding 214the swinish cast of their eyes, and sodden dullness of facial expression, there was out-shadowed a nucleus reflection, through the gross embargo of fungous flesh, that bespoke with its oppressed rays the still existence of the animus of goodness; but it was so faintly luminous that it failed to make its source self-apparent. From the remarks of the tribune, it appeared that the composite peculiarities of the German septs had been derived from a dietetic source, dependent upon the digestive energy of the stomach, and powers of distension for the disposal of sectional ingesta, selected for the expression of divisional patriotism. The mental effect produced was graduated from the wrangling source of irritation, to the philosophic effect of over-distension, conjoined with an owlish expression of vacuity in the region of the eyes. Although in outward expression ritualistically Christian, their mouths and stomachs were infidel in observance on fast-days, strenuously advocating the future resurrection of the body in the stomach. The females belonging to the family of the Count Palatine Von Lushmywitzs, possessed the elements of physical beauty, but there was a subdued expression of the eyes, with a pervading depression of deportment, exhibiting the guardian effects of discipline administered in their male sponsors’ philosophic moods; also in combination, a settled, disgustful despondency, emanating from an association with their lords after they had become filled to repletion with philosophic wisdom. It was easy, however, to perceive the struggling elasticity of purity and goodness in outreaching desire for kindred association, and hopeful deliverance from an entombed death of corruption. Pointing out several knights and ladies of more compact physical attainments, and vivacious movements in the expression of thought correspondence with features, the tribune stated that their improved appearance was solely dependent upon an admixture 215of foreign blood, opposed to swilling barley mead, and coarse gluttony. Many of these had sent their infants to Manatitlan colonistic schools, and, by the after adoption of their children’s example, had raised themselves to a comparative appreciation of the privileges bestowed for the elevation of humanity above the coarser instincts of its sub-alliance with the lower orders of animality.

The next train, in the knightly roachalvacade, embraced in the retinues of its leaders the representative extremes of humanity in the British Isles. They had bluff apetital features, with but a slight remnant predisposition to the philosophical swinishness that enveloped with fatty folds the direct descendants of their Saxo-German antecedents. In the place of jowled lethargy, they presented bold taural fronts, with a canine expression of tenacity about their mouths, that would cause you to involuntarily shrink from a collision with their heads and teeth. Indeed, their general aspect was stout and still in manifestation, indicating strong bodily self-reliance. The women exhibited a robust air of independence, with the pleasing accompaniment of rosy complexions, in strong contrast with the pale, inanimative features of their German cousins, which declared at sight their freedom from servility, with the exhibition of a coexistent power that could turn or tame the obstinate fronts of the males, when within the circle of their domestic domain.

Following close in the rear of English lead, came the Gallic French, who with chattering volubility and grimace, more than supplied the paucity of words used by those in advance. In personal characteristics they were in every respect foreign to their preceding neighbors. Without listening or replying they all talked in medley, which impressed me with the conviction that they had no definite ideas beyond the present evidences of their existence, or hopes of a future free 216from the predominating influence of their bodies’ frivolous selfishness. This impression was confirmed by the tribune, who said that sympathy with, and confidence in their kind, were alike ignored, each holding that the gratification afforded by the passing moment, was the only happiness and real hope, life afforded.

“In accordance with these assumptions, which they verify in act, we have found them loquaciously factious, and quite as unsettled as their Giga countrymen and exemplars; expressing in a breath the strongest terms of wordy affection and hatred for the same person, and in their constantly recurring civil feuds, destroying their rulers and relatives with less compunction than individuals of an opposing race. In verity from frivolous habits in thought and act, they have become despicable examples of the disorganizing effect of infidelity to Creative indications designed for our self-control. The French women, as you observe in the boldness of their public demeanor, are as vivaciously apt for the illustration of the opposite gender’s instinctive ideas of happiness in domestic association, as the German are submissive.”

The Spanish knightly representatives next passed in review. As roach cavaliers, they were far above their predecessors in graceful bearing and dignity of deportment; but their thoughts were inwardly disposed to the sole devotion of self-contemplation, looking down from the lofty pinnacle with supercilious complacency and condescension on all alike, expecting from others the deferential consideration they paid to themselves. The women were veiled and demure in bearing, but the instinctive sparkle of their eyes defied the gauzy fabric’s concealment.

The Italians came next, yielding, as entertainers, precedence to the four leading nations. The Mouthpat descendants of Italian nativity, as is the wont of the stocks derived from their audacious ingraft, 217assumed the lead. Closing the roachavalcade were knight adventurers from lesser nationalities, lacking in numbers sufficient for separate display. Alas, for my own and companion’s vaunted power of self-control over our instinctive passions, when exposed from inexperience to human acts of cruelty committed from the wantonness of power. As these human novelties passed under our curious inspection, panoplied and strangely garbed in glittering armour, one of the sturdy knights attached to the rear, in mere wantonness for the exhibition of his prowess without the risk of rebuttal, with the pretext of a gibing inquiry with regard to the health of his maternal parent, suspended an unoffending tit dwarf by thrusting his spear through his jerkin, holding him aloft, while the blood from a flesh wound trickled over his hose. It was well for the successful issue of our undertaking that a kindly disposed herald not only relieved him from his uncomfortable plight but gave him the wherewith for the purchase of another garment with the largesse he had received from the other knights, and in retribution ejecting the offender with disgrace from the lists. This justly merited punishment pacified our irate desire to call the aggressor to an account for his wanton cruelty. The warmth of our sympathetic pity caused the Coliseos, with a smile, to warn us that if we attempted to redress all the wanton and cruel aggressions that would be forced upon our notice, with the infliction of bodily punishment, we should be obliged to forego the benefits of peaceful example altogether. “We are powerless to stay the barbarous cruelties they practice among themselves, and our interference would only serve to aggravate the spirit of retaliation. From the beginning, the course pursued by our people has been beset with many temptations provoking arbitrary interference for the redress of wrongs. But they have managed to escape free from serious difficulty up to the present time, and our presence here 218to-day was compelled by affectionate sympathy to save the lives of well disposed parents whose children have been intrusted to our charge. With your aid we can now make a lasting impression that will prevent future aggressions, for they have a hereditary dread of the actual presence of the unadulterated Manatitlans.”

The trumpets sounding a parley for the announcement of the regulations of the day, and terms of the challengers, caused us to give hasty thanks to the tribune for his timely admonitions, with the promise that we would try and hold our feelings aloof from passionate excitement in behalf of all except those in whose aid we had enlisted. The lull that succeeded the herald’s call permitted us to hear the alheu of the pursuivant, but the special conditions of the challengers were drowned by the renewed buzz of voices. Gathering strength from personal retorts, they gave birth to sounds ranging from the high nasal to the low guttural of the German dialects, accommodating themselves to fragmentary enunciations of words, and the most dissonant syllabic combinations possible in conjuration from the rumbling intonations of indigestion. These crudities were jargonized with the curt unconsolidated English, the fustian croak of the Dutch, Gallic flippancy, slipshod Irish, and the nasal bagpipe drone or burr of the Scotch; to which was added the quavering Italian, the soft flow of the Spanish, with cadenced harmony of intonation, and the horrible rasping cartilaginous utterances of the Jewish nose, so repulsively selfish that endurance shudders in memory of the infliction. The tumult of tongues intercepted and confused the herald’s announcement, so that we were dependent upon the pantomimic acts of the stewards and beadles for an interpretation of the decrees regulating the combat. The Coliseos were in no way anxious to witness the medlarious enactments, so we were preferred to the most eligible positions for 219the gratification of our newly fledged curiosity, which I am ashamed to confess was over eager, and for the occasion must have lowered us in the estimation of our cousins. Our position exposed to us, in side view, the entire multitude in its caste gradations, from the canopied pope and cardinals and their created nobility, with the “fair ladyes” occupying the pavilion opposite, upward through the terraced ascent to the “strident gods,” who worried each other with true mythological zest when disengaged from the supervision of those below. When eager expectation was at its height, attention was diverted from the lists by solemn long drawn blasts of sackbuts accompanied with the roll of drums. This new phase closed the mouths of yelping instinct, and with the awed hush, the object cause of the doleful braying made its appearance from the gates of a dovecot abbey. This was a priestly procession moving with slow cadenced steps to the sound of an anthemed dirge. The tribune, who seemed to be intuitively apprized of all the movements in the routine phases of priestcraft, informed me that the procession preceded by the palled bier indicated a judicial combat, which was instituted for the final decision by the judgment of God of right and wrong in argument, as well as the guilt and innocence of persons accused of crimes. Farther exposition was anticipated by the entrance of a herald into the arena, who proclaimed, with an alheu,—“Whereas, it has occurred,—to the extreme mortification of his holiness,—that certain of the consistorial incumbents,—to wit, the holy brothers Bonefacio and Buenaventura, have differed in their estimate concerning the preferred essentials of sufficient and efficacious grace; giving rise to the implied accusations of perjury, with taunts, that in the warmth of expression exceeded the bounds of Christian forbearance,—it has been determined by our holy father, that they shall have extended to them the privilege 220of deciding a question so important to their respective personalities, and the general welfare of souls, by the ordeal of battle. In referring the detection of the perjured to the judgment of God, the doom pronounced upon the convicted,—in vindication of the just and holy laws instituted by the gracious clemency of our holy father,—it hath been adjudged that the respondents be awarded the benefit of knight champions, who for the love and sustenance of truth, in devotion to the holy mother church, shall offer, in willing submission, their bodies with arms for the decision of the question at issue, using their utmost exertion in skillful encounter, that the perjured may suffer merited punishment.”

The instinctive elements of humanity, like those which hold irruptive sway from excessive accumulation in the earth’s interior, involve anticipatory emotions of coming events. As, with the vacuum lull of the forest that heralds the tornado; or, in the ocean calm, the bubbling ripple crests which warn the volantaph of an approaching tempest; and the dread silence that precedes the earthquake’s convulsive throes,—the congregated multitude in counterpart had anticipated from the dirge the startling premonition of some horrible gratification. From suppressed respiratory gaze, unbroken except from an occasional Jewish croak, or belching eructations from uncircumcised barbarians unaccustomed to the suppressed control of reverential awe, the multitude, when the cause for the sombre prelude was announced, burst the bonds of thoughtless silence with deafening shouts for champions. The knights no less prompt offered their service in mass, so that it became necessary for the interdicted prelates to make selection of champions; in aid the heralds sounded their call for a parade procession. As the squires brought in the knightly equipments for their masters, the grooms led in the panoplied war-roaches. When mounted the knights passed 221in review before the consistorial pavilion. Exposed to the searching glances of spiritual and temporal criticism they exerted all their dexterity in the management of the roach-steeds and in the changing exercise of sword and spear to win the favor of an election. Cardinal Bonefacio had with other accomplishments acquired the reputation of being an expert roach equitator, as well as a skillful artist in the use of arms, in his temporal days. Buenaventura, his polemical adversary, aware of these advantages, and his own defective judgment, sought by the chicanery of his eyes to detect Cardinal Bonefacio’s preference, as in casting lots he had won the first choice, which would enable him to secure the champion of his opponent’s election. Among the knights there was one from Tipperary, a county shire in the Island of Hibernation, a dependency of Albion. This knight bore the title and name of Sir O’Ham Ill Tong, of Scythio-Mongolian extraction. His brogue, and quaint peculiarities of speaking in reversion, had attracted the tribune’s attention, who was familiar with the derivation of his sept and lingual idiom. He informed me that the literal meaning of his name was bad pork, as it was customary with the Mongolian tribes to name those outlawed from the hereditary cognomen of Kan Avan, or John, the son of the tribe, with the cause of defection; which in his case might have been inherited from ancestral resemblance, exchanging a bad article for good, or stealing from his own tribe, as each of these crimes were punished with bestowal of a name referring to the cause of attaint. His squire still bore the tribal name, and for economy enacted the part of roach-groom. This unique pair had attracted mirthful attention, and were the especial favorites of the gods; the knight for correspondence with name, and Kan Avan, his squire, for successful apish imitation of his master’s traits; but both were so blinded with boastful vanity that even 222the scoffing plaudits of the hinds ministered to its inflation. Cardinal Bonefacio, being in disposition humorously inclined, could not divert his eyes from the combined comicalities of their forms, pretensions, and clownish movements. This marked interest at once decided the choice of Cardinal Buenaventura. The wisdom of his selection was confirmed when the generosity of Bonefacio suggested a more prudent election. Finding that his colleague’s determination could not be changed, Bonefacio made Don Bacalao his proxy, a Spanish knight who depended upon his dignity and purity of lineage for success.

The cardinals having selected their champions, the lists were cleared for the encounter, the beadles remaining to enforce the ritualistic regulations. When the champions had assumed their positions, the barrier gates were opened to admit the judicial brotherhood, who while chanting their dirge proceeded to the centre of the arena and there deposited the bier with its palled coffin, upon which had been placed a skull and crossed bones of the human leg; over these as a dividing barrier the two champions would be required to thrust their lances in closing career. With this sable wall interposed, gravely premonitory with its relict escutcheon, of sepulchral entertainment, Sir O’Ham’s face became blanched, while the point of his spear directed heavenward described in trembling movements a geometrical medley of circles with acute triangles, as if engaged in calculating his chances of being elected a tenant. The face of the Spaniard, more intelligent in expression, but with deeper set fanatical lines, became overshadowed with fitful gloom as he intently watched the ominous proceedings of the cortege. Even the “gods” became silent with awe, in the presence of these foreboding evidences of the end of mortality, involuntarily crossing their foreheads and breasts with their fingers, as if to exorcise inevitable fate. With the sound of the trumpets for 223the charge, the perturbation of Sir O’Ham Ill Tong caused him to lose all control over himself and spear, the latter in its fall to rest encountered the beadle’s head. The blow was as free from the attaint of misdirection as it would have been in the most skillful hands with the intention of producing the prostrate result which it accomplished with the beadle. Although reduced to an attitude of supplication, the victim of this mishap gave voice to language widely at variance with the formulistic words used in Catholic prayer. The beadle’s uncontrollable anger, and the increased confusion of the champion, were of that humorous cast that renders mirth irresistible, even under the impression of imposing solemnities, and the restraining presence of those high in worshipful authority. In the present instance, the pope was constrained to turn his head aside, but his jowls shook and vibrated with jellied throbs that absolved even the ladies, in the opposite pavilion, from the painful effort that would have been required to conceal their mirthful emotions. The contagious effect of boisterous laughter would have made irresistible headway with the democratic elements of the godhead, but for the timely forethought of the heralds, and the mettlesome impatience of the roaches, which seconded with spirit the trumpet’s sound to charge. This the disgraced beadle, with aching head, encouraged with a smart kick applied to a sensitive part of O’Ham’s steed, causing it to start in its career with an impetus that nearly unseated the worthy knight. Losing his stirrups at the start the champion of Cardinal Buenaventura was obliged to exercise all the presence of mind within his reach to restrain his fiery roach from the dreaded encounter over the sable barrier; but fed at the table of the Giga pontiff, restraint was impossible. Notwithstanding the mad career of the high-fed roach, the knight with instinctive bravery clutched his spear, and would have directed it with his usual 224skill to the barret bars of Don Bacalao’s visor (recorded from his after confession) had not the doomed (by after intention) knight anticipated delayed design by the then present achievement of the same purpose with successful effect; his spear’s point catching in the slits of O’Ham’s visor he was hurled from his saddle a perjured man. His dangling spear having wounded one of the judicial brotherhood that was added to the sum of his day’s disgrace. Hisses, and contemptuous words of scorn saluted the knight’s highly sensitive instincts from the mouths of high and low degree when raised from his grovelings in the dust. To his discomfiture was added the pains and penalties of knightly disgrace that condemned his memory to infamy. Stripped of his armor by the beadles and grooms, his spurs were hacked from the heels of his brogans. The tribune informs me, that the name of the shoe is derived from the resemblance of its creak to the Hibernian’s brogue. His roach steed, and squire, participating in their master’s disgrace, were stripped of their housings, but the former, apparently less sensitive in the appreciation of his perjured condition, shook his blattidial wings with relieved satisfaction, in lively contrast with the crooning wirra of his companions. Then the three unfortunates were reduced as nearly to a state of nature as the regulations of modesty permitted; the knight and squire were haltered and placed upon the roach in a reversed position and led from the arena amid the jeers of the multitude. The heartless lack of pitying sympathy shown to the knight and his companions in misfortune, aroused in our breasts emotions akin to indignation, but we were again warned that we must not be prodigal with our kindly instincts unless we wished to bankrupt them in utter disgust. Finding ourselves constantly astray with the kindly yearnings of our inexperience in the ways of worldly human instinct, we resolved to set aside the integrity of our home 225impressions and abide by the direction of the Coliseo’s example.

When the judicial ordeal closed, his holiness and consistorials left the lists, that the people might enjoy their more profane amusements free from the embarrassment imposed by their sacred presence, Cardinal Buenaventura showing especial chagrin in being obliged to acknowledge that effectual grace was not sufficient. The only representatives of the priesthood remaining in the lists, who were not in the actual charge of souls, were abbots and priors, with their canons of inferior calibre, none of the Episcopal diocesans venturing to remain, although many cast longing and critical glances to the appointments and bearings of the knights through whose arrayed ranks they filed out of the lists on their way to the vatican. The judicial brotherhood with their dismal bar to joviality, and prisoners, disappeared within the gates of their sanctuary.

The relief from the combined influence of the departed became immediately manifest in the bantering freedom of all the gradations of the assemblage; the clergy leading in the display of wit and gallantry, but in a manner that frequently trenched upon the laity’s interested sense of propriety. The Joust, from the delay occasioned by the judicial combat, was now hastened, and the two processions were but shortly housed before the first two lances were splintered. Count San Pietro Marceroni, Captain of the Papal Guard, was the Italian’s Mouthpat champion, and had succeeded in gaining a slight advantage in bearing off the cockscomb that surmounted the helmet of Count Saint Poll de Parrote, a French knight of great renown, as an adept in the chivalric accomplishments of the age, as well as in the gastronomic art, having been elected by the Pope chief of cuisine, esteemed the most important office within his gift. Between the two knights there had been a 226warm rivalry for the favors of Princessa Idolisima Canonica, a niece of the pope, after his election to the Papal chair. As upon the result of the encounter the pope’s favor depended, the friends of Count Parrote, confident in his successful prowess, had presented him the helmet he wore as a presage of victory. This was surmounted with a cock’s head, neck, wings, tail, and comb, all in exultant elevation, as if sounding the highest octave in the clarion notes of victory. His countrymen, with still greater assurance, had caused the artist to execute a wreath composed of hearts, spear-heads, and trefoil, worked in gold; this circled and was attached to the cock’s crest. When this was borne off by the well directed aim of Count Marceroni’s spear point, I will acknowledge that I felt an instinctive thrill of elation. Still if his signal skill had resulted otherwise than in a bloodless victory, notwithstanding the flippant presumption of Count Parrote, I am assured that I should have felt a tremor of dismayed horror. In sustaining the reputation he had won Count Marceroni successively overthrew the stalwart son of Baron Biermywitzs, a young knight with an excellent German reputation for capacity. Baron Brainoff, a Muscovite with a heavy animal cast of countenance, theoretically accomplished in the Tartar tactics of thrust, run, and come again, which he displayed; but the arena was too contracted for their successful evolution, for he was overtaken and overthrown, his roach participating in his fall. His last encounter was with Baron von Wolfenstein, an Austrian knight with a powerful phlegmatic physique of vis inertia. At the start he placed his lance in rest over the carapace of his roach with the hopeful expectation of finding his opponent impaled thereon after the course had been run. When, from a defect in his calculation of his foe’s condescension, he found himself a prostrate companion with his steed, he did not exhibit 227in his movements the least symptom of chagrin, although saluted with the derisive jests of the democratic plebs, who appeared to enjoy with intense satisfaction the privilege of jousting their superiors with revilings, when temporarily reduced to their own groveling level. After a leisurely survey of his situation he slowly, by easy stages, regained his upright position without the proffered aid of the beadles; then with sluggish movements unlaced his beaver, and raising his visor, showed a face wreathed in torpid smiles that seemed to have had their rise from the recognition of the scoffing taunts as plaudits for the execution of some knightly achievement that had escaped his memory. This innocent act of mazy stupidity was taken by the spectators as a witty assumption in burlesque of victory, and vividly impressed with his supposed humorous aptness they made the welkin echo with their shouts of applause, until he had bowed himself out of the lists. Count Marceroni, by this democratic misapprehension of cause and effect, was completely robbed of the merited zest due to his adroit exhibition of skill in the precise use of weapons, and the Austrian Baron, the least worthy of his antagonists, was established as the prime favorite of the worshipful gods.

Turning to the tribune a look of inquiry, I observed with surprise that his face, for the first time, was suffused with a pleased expression. In explanation, he said that the scene I had just witnessed was a truthful exposition of the source from which a majority of the Gigas and Animalculans derived their reputations for wisdom, wit, and invention; in truth, he continued, musingly, you can take it as a fair demonstration of the substance of their living realities. Embracing the opportunity, he again advised us not to let our Manatitlan natures interpose their sensitive perceptions for the gratuitous bestowal of praise or pity, as they would serve to mar the relish of comical 228effects afforded by the hap-hazard novelties in store from the heterogeneous imitations of Giga habits and customs.

While the “fun” provoked by the suppositious humor of the Austrian baron, Wolfenstein, was at its height, the heralds announced the melée. The arena, in this promiscuous scene of antagonism, was so completely filled with knights and their roach steeds that the space between the challengers and challenged only afforded a limited movement, short spears having been substituted for the longer and more cumbersome couch-lance, but the favorite weapons were clubs, swords, and battle-axes. As the combatants were so nearly in contact with each other when unroached, they discarded all weapons save the short dagger, and it was fearful to behold the fierce blows dealt with it, for instead of men the combatants appeared like enraged beasts who used knives, and other weapons, in the place of claws. But as the horrible scene progressed, we were often obliged to turn our faces aside from dizzy faintness. The roaches imitating the fierce example of their riders became infuriate, seizing with their mandibles opposing legs and antenn?, so that many were disabled by mutilating attacks both in front and rear, for in the melée they showed as little regard for honorable usage of the parts exposed as their riders. It was gratifying to see that a majority of the ladies’ heads were bowed down, with their hands tightly pressed upon their ears, and it was long after all the evidences of the bloody fray had been removed that they again assumed an upright position. This evidence of sensitive repugnance, on the part of women personally known to them, produced a congratulatory revulsion with the Coliseos, who hailed it as a favorable omen, with the hope that its influence had turned aside the fanatical intentions that meditated the sacrifice of the kidnapped tits upon the altars of superstition. In the 229enthusiasm of the moment, my mentor exclaimed: “I firmly believe that there is not a Giga or Animalculan mother in Italy, who, in freedom from bias, would refuse the privilege of having their children educated in accordance with the Manatitlan system!”

After the sand had been renewed in the lists to cover the unsightly stains, a light and joyous rondalen was sounded, and the commingled challengers and challenged were seen issuing from their tents in the wooded bosque, and mounting fresh roaches, newly caparisoned with gay trappings, they again entered the lists. When the roachavalcade reached the barrier vestibule, the heralds proclaimed: “Count San Pietro Marceroni, the elected king champion of the lists, in whom is vested absolute authority, and honors that will remain inviolate, until in an approved tourney a worthy successor can be found. Salute your champion king!” The trumpets then sounded the crowning tan-tarra, while the count, assisted by twelve knights-of-honor, dismounted and was invested with the kingly robes of love and honor, then kneeling upon a richly wrought carpet he was crowned by the master of ceremonies with the consecrated chaplet of Mars. As he rose the vast assemblage saluted him with the exclamations: “Long live the noble Count San Pietro Marceroni, king champion of the lists!” the mouthed concussions of boisterous adulation causing the canopies to vibrate with the echoing sound of noisy and noisome breath.

Again the braying of trumpets and clash of cymbals overpowered the tumultuous shouts of the multitude, and when sufficiently hushed for a single voice to be heard, the grand master gave utterance in proclamation to the maxim: “It is not good for man to rule alone! And, in obedience to well approved custom, and the chivalric gallantry of brave hearts, it hath been adjudged that after his own installation the king champion shall, from his own choice, elect a 230queen of love and beauty to preside in public at feast and festival during the term of his regality. In accordance with this imperative decree our salutations await his choice!”

Mounting his richly caparisoned blattidean roach with a graceful vault, Count Marceroni caused him to execute a variety of changes in pace of the most difficult posing gaits imaginable; and, while passing from a demi-amble to a demi-cavolt, raised from its cushion in the hands of his squire the chaplet designed for his queen upon the point of his lance, allowing it to rest in loop upon its cross-check. This adroit feat was greeted with shouts of applause, which stimulated him to enact a great variety of euphuistic attitudes,—a species of pantomimic male coquetry then much in vogue with the Giga nobility,—which the tribune said would express, with the scenes of the day, how ritualistically void in enactment, the exemplar and imitator were for the real attainment of happy impressions. There was certainly for the instinctive worshipper, much to admire in the studied adroitness of the count’s acquirements, as they bespoke disciplined perseverance; but when I reflected that his manly capabilities had been expended upon frivolous expertness to grace a brutal pastime, I found cause for self-reprobation for the sympathy of my admiration. Of the count’s predilection all seemed to be aware, but, withal, held their breathing subdued with expectation to gather force for a new outburst of applause when his acceptance was confirmed. Arriving in front of the Princessa Idolisima’s pavilion, by the longest circuit, with doublings, that the effect of his euphuistic mimicries might be fully appreciated, he with an obeisance that enveloped the caput-shield of his roach with the plumes of his casque, petitioned with his voice; “Will the most noble Princessa Idolisima Canonica deign to share the brief rule of her humble subject, Count San Pietro Marceroni, as the queen of love, beauty, and harmony?”

231With a blush of equivocal import, she nodded her acceptance. Then, while her eyes were yet concealed under the latticed veil of their long, silken lashes, the count, with infinite grace, conveyed the coronet with a “coup de lance” to its proper position on her head without disturbing a ringlet with its steel. Plaudits in salvos rose in deafening succession with the successful accomplishment of this dexterous feat, which bespoke long and patient practice with a living model. The princessa represents through ——, her uncle, the pope, one of the original Mouthpat families of Greenpat, with blood variations from European ingraft, which had produced a remarkable improvement, by blending and mellowing with distance the animal traits into an expression, that might with propriety be termed instinctive idealization. Her eyes are black with a shadowy impression of azure softening the snaky brilliancy of the Italian into a sympathetic hue, free from the luric reflection of vengeful passions. When free from exciting emotions, they beam forth an expression of calm dignity, above the sway of lust, vanity, and envy, that gave birth to the cruel frivolities of the day, which she evidently patronizes from compulsion. The composition, in outline, of her other features, corresponds in expression with her eyes, bespeaking the struggling emergence of her thoughts from sensual control, although, from relative association, obliged to conform to the usages that hold ruling sway. But, withal, there is apparent to our eyes an underlying consciousness of purity and goodness, with her responsibility for their cultivation and preservation for transmission. We were so strongly impressed with her longing desire for more substantial attainments than the illusive vanities with which she was surrounded, that we could not refrain from giving voice to our thoughts, which brought a succession of grateful flushes to the tribune’s face, foretokening an interest of deeper import than our observation had 232previously detected. Frankly acknowledging the predisposition his emotions indicated he begged to be excused from an explanation while subject to so many counter enactments. A request that delicacy conceded without voiced assurance.

While the northern portion of the lists was in the process of transformation into a sectional amphitheatre for the exhibition of an ant and tarantula fight,—which unfortunately our position overlooked,—Count Marceroni led his queen with her maids of honor into a pavilion erected for her reception at the extreme southern portion of the arena, which in construction had received his special supervision. When this, after occupation, was exposed to view, the splendor of its appointments in tinsel adornment received the prayerful adoration of the assemblage. Seated in front of the pavilion on its extended platform, just without the shadow of its dais, were two celebrated improvisorial troubadours of Provence, a small kingdom in the south of France. These were to contend in verse and song for prizes to be awarded by the queen of beauty, love, and harmony, to the adjudged successful superiority of the competitors in their varied styles of adventurous composition. A laurel wreath, or chaplet, had been prepared for the queen’s crowning disposal, with the title of laureate; the recipient holding with the emblematic token the conferred privilege of supremacy in his vocation through all the Animalculan courts of Christendom, until a greater star should appear in the musical firmament, for his eclipse, under the like sanction of infallible approval. When the congregation were fully separated for the suitable enjoyment of their tastes in the contrasted extremities of the lists,—the northern having the relative preponderance of eight to one of the southern audience,—a screen was drawn to intercept the boisterous freedom of the borealian sphere.

233When the arrangements were fully completed, a maiden herald pronounced in silvery tones, “Alheu!” Then Penny Song with tuneful rebeck essayed his overture with reverent eyes upturned in conceptive supplication to the ruling goddess of love and harmony. To the symphony of murmuring strings in soft prelude to a rippling vision from the fountain of musical poesy, he began his lay. Gradually, with the accession of tributary streams, the current tones increased from the smooth still voiced streamlet, until it merged into the rapid flow of the pebbly brook, combining in sound cascade variations with rippling flow over shallow inequalities into the bubbling depths of a pool, and from thence onward with accumulating force into the deep volume of the river’s tide. His voice in harmonious movement, tremulous with emotions reinvoked from passionate recitative thought, rehearsed in song the Songs of Solomon. Floating with the gilded wings of sensual taste, he fluttered over the luscious lisp of lips united in their sip of virgin nectar from the fount of instinctive love; at first chaste and free from guile in the sparkling depths of pure desire,—but, anon, overflowing in contemplation of the wide expanse of flowery meads, until satiated with its profligate deviation from the legitimate boundaries of its course, he discovers with lamentation the muddy defilement that exceeds his hopes of purification. The song of the bard was wildly descriptive of the longings of instinctive desire, until the hero had embraced with his wisdom the fairest and loveliest daughters of Israel; then imbecile with sensual gratification, he utters in his senility the wailing cry: “Vanity, all is vanity!” and is gathered to his father’s dust. The Princessa Idolisima, when the theme became expressive in sensual development, perused attentively the countenances of all within reach of her eyes, but seeing how eagerly engrossed they were with the voluptuous 234portrayals of the poet bard, she with her selected companions bowed their heads upon their hands with a sorrowful blush of shame. This mood the bard observing, with the cause, introduced into his lamentations strong reproof of himself for the selection of a subject so replete with infamous suggestion. His sarcasm eloquent in self-condemnation aroused the lascivious from their enraptured fancies, causing them, from shame, to break the spell; and when they saw the princessa and her maids with their heads bowed down, many from self-conviction gave evidence that within themselves they felt the cause. Among these was Count San Pietro Marceroni. The bard approved himself to be in the possession of extraordinary imitative powers, for in his recitative picture he held his hearers, of subject kind, entranced and as quickly aroused them with the pungency of his addenda to the dirged lamentations of instinctive wisdom, which would have startled the old hero to a more energetic renunciation of his follies than the vapid exclamation, that his experience was vanity and vexation of spirit.

The prelude of his competitor, Long Bow, was far more primitive in its characteristic portrayal, being timed to irregular cadences of barbaric import. The plaintive melody evoked by his touch from a stringed gourd was in consonance with the strains of his song-theme, which depicted the wild erratic love of savage life, but with far less instinctive merit in recitative description than the love ditties of our Betongese neighbors. At times the savage devotion of the lovers seemed to rise above the animal instincts of sense, but only to sink deeper into the mythical regions of hopeful doubt and despair. The butt at which Long Bow aimed was a rhythmic measure adapted to savage nomenclature and the improvised harmony of his gourd.

At the conclusion of his recitative the herald 235maiden called: “Give ear, lovers of the gay and joyous science,—attend! while the queen of love, beauty, and harmony approves with her commendation and award the happy victor in the joust of improvised song?” The count champion offered his hand to assist Idolisima in her descent to the balcony erected for the bestowal of awards, but his bearing was abashed with the conscious self-reflection of unworthiness. Idolisima, the queen, without assistance stepped self-reliantly forward to her position, and then, without ceremonious prelude, beckoned Long Bow to advance. Approaching he knelt in accordance with the prescribed euphuistic forms of chivalric obeisance in the presence of royalty. Placing the chaplet upon his brow she bid him rise. Then calling Penny Song forward she presented him with a zithern, the prize for the victor in song. The assemblage, disappointed in her award of the laureate’s chaplet, were appeased by the more substantial gift of the zithern to their favorite, recognizing in its material worth a preference for their choice. This material appeal to their senses opened the only avenue to their appreciation, but their partial murmurs of approval were stilled by a look and disdainful wave of the hand. When subjected to silence, she addressed Long Bow in terms adapted to the usage of chivalry, although manifestly at variance with expectation in expression:—

“Sir minstrel, we have esteemed your claims to the title of laureate as best sustained in the court of fair ladies; inasmuch as you have been pleased to acknowledge with our presence a comparative respect for purity, by which, in fact, you have honored the worth of your own, as well as the common name of mother. By endeavoring to exalt with your muse the instinctive purity and fidelity of your savage heroine, the fair High Water, you have admitted that it is our duty and privilege to excel her untutored 236example. Still you have paid to ourselves and maternity of our race an equivocal compliment for worth in your far-fetched search for a heroine example of constancy in love and purity. Notwithstanding the implied lack of living examples worthy of imitation for the inspiration of your songful muse, we have preferred your savage precedent to your competitor’s glossing embellishment of his hero’s vices. With the hope that you may discover, during your adventurous residence in Rome, an Animalculan or Giga representative that will honor your mother’s sex with worth sufficient to inspire your commendation in song, we would urge the undertaking as one deserving your earnest attention. In the event of success it will save your muse many weary pilgrimages into deserts and the waste places of earth for the achievement of consolation from savage example. That the emprise may not lack direction I will recommend you to visit the Manatitlan colony of Coliseo. For with them, when convinced of your sincerity, you will find in woman an exaltation of loving affection that will by far exceed your highest conceptions.”

She would have extended her reproof, but as she was in the act of addressing Penny Song, her commendation of the Manatitlan colonists brought such an overwhelming “answering sibilation” in denouncement that her brothers, in fear of an outbreak, hurried her away. The minstrels during the excitement approached near enough for whispered communication, the purport of which brought a smile of gratification to her face. They then as a diversion commenced a roundelay of spirited movement, uniting their voices in bluff concert to the sound of the zithernas. As with enraged wild beasts when surprised with the sound of music, the factious instincts of the spectators were stilled. The Coliseos were rejoiced at the steadfast adherence of Idolisima to the inculcations 237of her Manatitlan education, for the tribune now informed us that she had served her full term in the Coliseo school, promising to relate at a convenient season the cause of her apparent defection.

Although fearfully repugnant to our feelings, we turned our attention to the democratic amusements in the northern sectional arena, within the vestibule of the barriers; as you cautioned us of the necessity of seeing for ourselves all the enactments that we recorded for advisorial judgment. The “pit,” as it was aptly termed, was a miniature imitation of the large arena of the lists; but the contestants for the honors of mutilation were ants of the white, red, and black species, and their antagonists were tarantulas distinguished by the same order and variation of colors. But with naturally a higher object in view than their human Animalculan and Giga exemplars, and controllers of the lists, they fought without the artificial weapons that man’s superior intelligence has devised for kindred destruction, in direct controversion of the manifest designs of Creative intention. The instinctive impressions of a blind man could have detected without the aid of thought, the tangible distinctions that had furnished the motive attractions for the northern and southern divisions of divertisement predilections. The ants and the spiders engaged in mutilating encounter, were to us, in reality, more attractive objects to contemplate in their active ferocity, than their human spectator instigators, who combined with controlling intelligence the visual evidences of the most abject passions within sphere of animal and its reptile grade of expression. The patrons of the southern pavilion had been held in dalliance with the soft pleasures of amorous sensuality, which unopposed called forth the highest expression of instinctive refinement; but the current tendencies from multifarious indulgence were to the fall and deep whirlpool abyss of passion, hate, and deadly revenge.

238The colored specie distinctions of the ants and spiders appeared to be as great a source of inveterate hatred between its caste representatives, as the antagonisms of race in form. This necessitated the separation of the white from the red, and the red from the black ants, with a like disposal of the tarantulas from specie representatives of opposing colors. The first encounter that we witnessed was between white and red ants; the former being universally successful with the odds of nine to one against them, and with the blacks twenty to one. The cause of this concentration of multiplied ability in the white, to cope with red and black antagonism, became soon apparent from their studied aforethought for the serried separation and disposal of their foes before they could effect united opposition. The deadly devices of the whites to lure their foes, with the stupid blindness of the red and black ants in accepting the proffered baits without consideration, afforded a relative study for detecting the cause of the instinctive superiority that rules with white humanity. When the whites in an encounter against overwhelming odds had gained decisive advantage, the cathedral bells of Saint Peter sounded from the chief dovecot beneath our place of concealment; its funeral peals announced a new phase in the strange enactments of the day, which had appeared to us so perverse as sources of amusement that we were at no loss to discover the Giga creed origin of hell. Fearful that the long-waited-for crisis was approaching, our eyes were upon the alert.

As the yellow tints from the sun’s fading rays grew hazy with the twilight heraldings of darkness, the folding doors of a large building of ominous appearance opened, and from its portals issued a procession of Dominican friars. In the midst of these inquisitorial representatives of the human sacrificial order, were the unfortunate tits supported by familiars of the Holy Office, with their limbs dragging helplessly 239upon the pavement, and their heads half revolving on their shoulders without the power of muscular control. The sight aroused the indignation of the tribune and his companions, who with difficulty restrained us from extending to them our immediate aid and sympathy. This was no slight undertaking on their part, for we were unused to a knowledge of the existence of such heartlessness, and would have adventured their deliverance if the odds had been an hundred fold greater; but we finally yielded to the wisdom of their discretion.

On the arrival of the sad cortege at the knight’s encampment they joined the procession escort of the doomed, among which were Sir O’Ham Ill Tong, and his squire, Kan Avan, who had been evidently condemned to the stake. As the gates of the northern barrier were obstructed by the occupation of the vestibule arena, in which the ants and spiders were engaged in an instinctive joust, the inquisitors in deference to the multitude awaited the decision of the contest; the latter, with reverence, giving place for them to witness the result of the sportive entertainment, as a prelude to their premeditated enactments. At the conclusion of the melée fight of the ants, in which the white champions had proved victorious, a large, whitish gray tarantula spider had been “pitted” against five mottled white ants, both parties having been subjected to a training abstinence from food to increase their ferocity. For a time the battle had been equally sustained, but a bold venture cost two of the ants their lives; in the feat the tarantula was maimed with the partial rupture of a carapace and the loss of the distal joints of two legs. Two of the remaining ants having a firm mandibular hold on the round carapace leg, the greatest excitement prevailed among the spectators, wagers being bantered between high and low; all distinctions of caste, for the time being, were banished by the talismanic greed for 240gold and silver. It soon became evident the auto-da-fe rites would be deferred until the result of the ant-fight was determined, for the order of procession was broken, the familiars with their human burdens crowding to gain a favorable position to witness the closing struggle. While the ants gnawed and swayed in hold upon the tarantula’s leg, he struggled to bring them within reach of his mandibles. The partial success of the assailants and assailed was greeted with vociferous shouts by the wager partisans, unabashed by the presence of the inquisitorial brotherhood and archiepiscopal dignitaries of the church. The tribune sadly reminded us, that the brutality of the scene was the tested ?gis of democratic equality based upon individual or associate physical strength adroitly used,—chance advantages, or in massed subjection to the rule of selfish partisanship, as with ants in attacking the spider whose habits and interests in life interfered in no way with their own. But as you perceive, the hinds are so stupid in the dullness of their perceptions, that with the clear analogy of the cause and result of their own condition, in demonstration from the arbitrary power of physical strength that captured and forced the ants and spider into antagonistic collision, they fail to detect in the caste orders of priestcraft and knighthood the same motor influence in mental combination.

With our attention called so directly to the resemblance,—from the pitiable condition of the poor tit victims, who had been tortured into the vestibule of death, and were awaiting the ordeal of fire to recall from their bodies the vital spark,—we could not fail to admire the comprehensive quickness of our Coliseo cousins’ detective acumen for analyzing the relations and gradations of instinctive responsibility. Indeed, it would be impossible for you to imagine a more discordant or disgusting scene, or a baser use of language than these bloodthirsty humans used at every 241disjuncture effected by the combatants. That you may obtain an inkling of this pandemonic scene of instinctive madness, I will adventure a sketch.

Prominent among the representatives of foreign nations was a Scotch abbot of the abbey of Saint Maythedielscratch-me on the Tweed. In person and language he was tall and lank. Although engaged in “amusement” with an English prior, the incumbent of Goddamnmee on the Tyne, just over the border, they “staked” fearful invectives with their metallic coin. But the English canon was evidently no favorite, and required all the bluffness he had attained by a long course of dominant rule over a submissive brotherhood, as well as a full purse of tithes, for he was bantered with wagers on every side. But with bellowing disdain in the short and curt Durham dialect, he was ready with horned alternatives to oppose all comers. Chief among his secondary challengers, with coined words, was the abbe of Mortdieu, who mingled frothy gibes with his wager temptations. The ants were at length vanquished, to the great chagrin of the English abbot’s debtors, who tried all sorts of evasions to escape payment. Oncleslydenbet, the German prior of the priory of Shufflehausen, repudiated the payment of his forfeited wager in the concise terms, “Not a bit of it!” The Irish abbot of Fivewounds said, “To be sure I have bet and lost, but it was the understanding that I should never pay unless I won!” The Dutch incumbent of Dunderandblixen, the Welsh of Sweatmyleeks, and French paid theirs; the first with fearful imprecations and sputterings, the second with an abundant flow of perspiration, and the last with strings of sacres.

But for your injunction, I should have withheld the incidents of a scene so horribly repulsive in its ferocious combinations of speaking inhumanity. Especially as it implies distracted attention from the wretched condition of the dislocated tits; but in direction 242we submitted to the ulterior intention of the Coliseos. The tribune, whose aid you will recognize, said, that you required an exact index of the real condition of the Giga and Animalculan races under the instinctive rule of the stomach and senses, that you might compare the evidences with those of the first falcon era, to judge of the cycle changes. The task, with his assistance, is by no means pleasant, as with increasing familiarity the scenes of brutality become more repulsive, so that you need have no fears that they will affect us otherwise than as a ferment to clarify the instincts of our bodies from corrupt humors and indwelling passions. Much time was exhausted in wrangling before the ant circus was removed to admit the papal and inquisitorial trains into the lists. The arrival of the former, while the battle of the ants and spider was pending, was exceedingly fortunate for Cardinal Buenaventura, as by wagering with the pope an equivalent, with the spider for his champion, he was exorcised of his perjury, and by remitting to his holiness certain pecuniary obligations, received absolution to date. Our sympathy for the tarantula’s loss of his carapace legs, with the extreme division of the fourth, was not strongly excited, as in excess of his pope contemporary’s alleged stigmatic attributes of infliction and redemption, from instinctive woes, he in reality possesses the “miraculous” power of material reproduction of lost limbs.

The arena of the lists had been rearranged for the final enactment, and furnished with stakes and faggots for the sacrificial ordeal of fire, as a purgatorial agent for the purification of the body from heretical sins. These altars were raised between the two pavilions; and the ladies’, I am obliged with sadness to relate, was filled with representatives of the sex, yet they were of a class whose gratifications were solely dependent upon the organs of sense. During the converting labors of the confessors with the San Benitos 243the inquisitorial monks, dignitaries of the church, and knights, chanted a grand high mass to ritualistic ceremonial accompaniments. This was pronounced to be more affecting, by the occupants of the ladies pavilion, from the sobbing wails and lamentations of the doomed Irish knight, Sir O’Ham Ill Tong, and his squire, Kan Avan, who unceasingly proclaimed their innocence from perjury after they were tied to the stakes, thus adding contumacy to the ordeal and decisions of the judges. As their winnings disgraced the order of knighthood they were gagged with clouts.

When these preliminary preparations were nearly completed, the tribune gave the longed for signal of rescue. In a twinkling our Manatitlans were in the midst of the inquisitors and ecclesiastics, upsetting them in a confused pile with the knights. We liberated the tits by the time the Coliseo aids arrived, who placed the rescued in the arms of their relatives. The panic we created could not have been greater if we had been gigas instead of giantescoes. The women, who had looked calmly on the preparations for human sacrifice by the tortures of a slow fire, screamed and fainted at our appearance, their attendant knights surrendering without opposition. The pope and cardinals were in as much fear as the unsanctified until the tribune made known the source from whence we came. Then relieved from his apprehensions of bodily danger, he commenced crossing himself furiously, muttering the while anathemas against the Coliseos and their followers for the sacrilegious invasion, and interference with the sacred offices of the church. Counting upon our intimidation through the enactment of prestigious mummeries, he would have left with his satellites; but the tribune detained him by laying his hand upon his shoulder with an inflection that made the burly little head of the church understand that it had forced a crisis, from which mumbling 244ritual cant could not extricate it without the assurance of a strict regard for the personal independence of all Animalculans from religious restrictions. We will give you the terms of the tribune’s injunction:—

“Now Canonicus, that there may be no more acts of treachery on your part, or through the instigations of those subject to your direction, I shall dictate to you terms in behalf of our Manatitlan colonies that you must keep inviolate, for if they are infringed upon in the least degree we shall hold you and your associates personally responsible. We have heretofore offered you good will, but you have taken advantage of it to impose upon our communities and inflict personal injuries upon our adherents; showing that you are alike destitute of gratitude, and the disposition that inclines to honorable and just reciprocation. In the first place, you are to respect the privileges of all claiming a desire for our protection, whether an Animalculan of Mouthpat birth, or of other nationality. In the second place we shall hold you personally responsible for any acts of cruelty perpetrated by Animalculans under your control upon animal or insect; and for the honor of instinctive humanity we especially interdict all barbarous amusements between man and man. Fortunately, communication has again been opened with our motherland, and by the timely arrival of our cousins, we have been able to avail ourselves of their counsel when most needed. From the enactments of to-day, which have borne witness to the steadfast goodness of your daughter, Idolisima, in her adherence to the inculcations of her Coliseo education, we shall hereafter require that all the Animalculan children of Rome shall from henceforth be submitted to our censorial and educational charge. We are aware that in assuming the charge we undertake an immense and arduous responsibility from the fecundity of your animal propensities. But 245in time our inauguration will effect the substitution of improved quality for quantity with an affectionate compensation that with cultivation and reciprocation you have the means of realizing in fatherly association with your daughter.”

Here he was interrupted by Sir O’Ham Ill Tong,—from whose mouth the clout had been removed,—with the ejaculation: “An sure, by our holy mother, what your honor is plased to say is all gospel truth, and by the same token, if there is any more, I believe it on my shoul! But if your honor will be so obbleeging as to order one of your giants to remove this gorget that binds my throat to the stake, and set me free, if yees have closed what ye are going to say, I can hear the rest more comfortably, and ye’ll save from fire as good a Christian as ever was burnt for pargary,—an for the life of me, I can’t just see how that can be, for I niver spoke a blissed word in the matter at all!”

This characteristic wordy appeal of the Irishman was complied with on the moment, and when released he fell on his knees at the feet of the tribune, invoking upon his head the blessings of all the saints in the Irish calendar, offering to serve him to the end of his days, on foot, or on roachback, for nothing at all save fair wages, hursts, perquisites, pickings, and the run of the kitchen, and sich likes! The ludicrous fall, in the use of words, from knightly inflation caused a smile notwithstanding the embarrassments imposed by our interruption. But the flow of his tongued gratitude to the ascendant party, having reference to future benefits, could with difficulty be stayed. When accomplished he was advised to return with all speed to the place of his birth before a worse evil befell his body than purification by fire.

The pope and his cardinals, while subject to the tribune’s reprehensions, became as servile in their bearing as they had before been arrogant. The pope’s 246offer of entertainment for the night we could not accept, after witnessing the barbarous proceedings of the day, as we preferred the protection of our silicoth tapas under the cornice to the lair hospitality of human wolves. After the crowd dispersed a messenger was despatched to apprise the Coliseans of the successful result of our enterprise, with the desire that a falcon might be sent for us at early dawn. In accordance with our request a falcon appeared with the earliest light on the following morning, and on alighting, to our great surprise, Idolisima Canonica, in company with the tribune’s parents and other representatives of Coliseo to the howdah’s full capacity for entertainment, descended to receive our salutations. It appeared, from the relation of the tribune’s sister, that Idolisima after leaving the lists had sought protection under the escort of Penny Song and Long Bow, at the coliseum, well knowing that the ties of daughter and sister would not save her from the dungeons of the Inquisition, recently built by the pope, her uncle. From the greeting she gave the tribune, it required no prompting of speech to apprise us that a stronger motive than fear of the dungeons caused her to seek an asylum with her foster guardians of childhood.

Without teasing our curious interest in her welfare she appealed to the tribune: “Your Manatitlan cousins, Novuotus, would scarcely feel satisfied with your interest in my behalf, if I should allow you to hold me silently exculpated from your abiding confidence in the wisdom that dictated our betrothal. As we are united, yet single, in the fulfillment of our marital alliance, I am anxiously desirous of having the affectionate sanction of their approbation, which could not be conceded if they thought me capable of participating otherwise than by form, in the cruel enactments of yesterday. In speaking, it is my wish to vindicate myself from voluntary conformity with the chivalric usages in which I engaged, as they were 247then, as they ever have been, sadly repugnant to my conceptions of love and affection, which vividly impress me with the reality of an existence independent of the body’s mortality. That your cousins may realize in what measure they are entitled to bestow upon me their lenity and sympathy, I will relate to them the cause that influenced my introduction to the guardianship of your people. Of my ancestral origin, I am certain that the events of yesterday will better inform you than I am able from my own knowledge. In my fourth year, when my perceptions were only advanced in the bud sufficient for impression, without enlisting the maturing aid of thoughtful judgment derived from comparison, my father, mother, and two brothers, became very sick with the plague, alike destructive to the Giga and Animalculan races. The harrowing scenes of bereavement daily recounted in my presence aroused impressions of fear for myself, and when my parents became sick, I added anxiety to my aunt’s responsibility, to whose sole charge we had been left by the servants and neighbors. One day, despairing and hopeless, my aunt had enfolded me in her arms, and while wofully lamenting threatened desolation from the death of my parents and brother, I was trying to solace her with endearments, my arms were around her neck, with my lips to her ear and face turned backward, when the door softly opened and my voice was stilled by the surprise of my eyes at the entrance of a very large and beautiful woman. [Here Idolisima fondly embraced, with caresses, the neck of the Doschessa of Romelia.] My silence and fixed attention attracted my aunt’s eyes to the door, and when she discovered the stranger, who appeared to be well known to her, she was much abashed that she had been surprised in useless lamentation. This made me gladly hope that the visitor was an angel sent to help us; so, growing bold with the feeling of hope, I gently withdrew 248myself from my aunt’s embrace and approached the stranger imploring her aid for my parents and brothers! In a moment I was in her arms; then I became so quickly changed, I no longer feared, for her voice and touch made me feel so secure that I was sure she came from heaven to help us. But I have since experienced that she came from a far better place beyond the reach of gold and its selfish attractions. Urging my aunt to take new courage, she went out, still holding me in her arms, and meeting a censor, with others of her people, she returned, and soon our house became quite changed, for they brought with them your clothes that remain clean, so that from being dismal and sad everything looked nice and cheerful. Then mother reviving, she also knew the angel, who asked her if she could take me to her Coliseo home? Oh, how gladly my mother smiled with her whispered yes, so faintly and pleadingly grateful in earnest expression it has ever been present since. Striving to speak, my mother fell asleep without breathing, but still she smiled, until it paled to a shadow in the moonlight, then we were taken to the Coliseo, for my aunt required rest, where we were bathed and dressed with the care of so many sweet faced persons, that we became quite bewildered with love and slept. In the morning we were wakened with sunlight and song, so harmonious with gladness, my aunt touched me to be sure, for we both thought alike. I was placed in school where there were so many that in love we were counted as one, for we were so united in affection that tears of vexation and sadness never flowed. Then as I grew in years, I learned to grow emulous in the personal requirements of purity, and with the care of myself, was able to assist others, for the grateful meed of love. Much more I could say, but I feel that you do not require it. When my father became my uncle, Pope Innocent I., I had reached my eighteenth year, and 249had been betrothed to Novuotus, and we were enjoying the hospitality of my foster parents, the Dosch and Doschessa of Romelia, during our term of probation, when my father, after his election, demanded that my aunt and myself should be restored to his care. The Dosch, after a long consultation with his advisors, for he was very sorry to part with us, concluded that it was best for us to return. This was a very sad decision for us, but we were assured that if we found ourselves unhappy from being unable to do good, we could come back. We were then taken to my ‘uncle’s’ temporal court, but none were truly glad to see us, for we were strangers, even to my father, for he would not accept the monthly invitation to visit me at the Coliseo school. Yet we were constantly surrounded with a throng of servants and people of condition, so that with them, we were mere puppets, and felt very unclean, for we could do nothing for ourselves. But all were very profuse in the utterance of complimentary formalities, which made us feel like exiles from real affection. The first process to which we were subjected was purification from heresy; in preparation our silicoth garments were removed, and our persons were redressed with woven stuffs, that in their newness smelt animally earthy, and soon became irksome in weight, and rankly unendurable, notwithstanding they had been sprinkled with holy water at the time we were baptized. Then, my aunt was made, or created, queen of Rome, and I was christened Princess Idolisima Canonica by the same process. A few days since my aunt escaped and went back to unite with her Coliseo affections; since than I have been closely guarded, as I had attempted to leave with her, but was foiled by accident. So with my father turned uncle, I became the puppet, or bone and flesh of contention for the strongest and best trained brute in the lists, and was seemingly obliged to conform to the dictated usages; 250but with the determination to escape if an opportunity offered. In this relation I have traced my childish impressions in the language I have been accustomed to impart them to my loved school associates; to remodel them to suit my present perceptions would detract from memorial pledges of affection. That you saw me in the lists yesterday, came not through my own volition, as you will concede; but perhaps, from a wise wish on the part of the Dosch and his advisors to test in what I lacked for the power of resisting the wordy flatteries and material vanities to which I would be exposed in the papal court of my uncle. For I had exceeded in years your period of matriculation, as my instinctive impressions are still retained in memory, with the infantile desires perpetuated in assumed motherhood of artificial productions in baby likeness. But if you can only see me as I feel, and have felt, in pity for the barren love of the mothers of Rome, who are content with the pride of hope in the advancement of their children to material possessions, and the empty honors conferred by my uncle, the pope, you must know that with all my imperfections I am, in the current love of purity and goodness, free from my body’s instinctive taint. Knowing my earnest yearning for purified worth, in my desire for the welfare of others, you will, I am sure, lend me your aid for the higher attainments achieved in realization by your primitive people for loving perception.”

This appeal of Idolisima received the sanction of our affections with a warmth of genial outflow confirmed in baptismal attestation from our eyes. The Doschessa in reciprocating the fond caresses of Idolisima said that she and her aunt had nobly sustained the venture, showing that with woman love’s perception, when free from selfishness, is in a measure independent of age, when subject to the constant lead of example. In closing it will be well to state that 251the union of Novuotus with Idolisima was consummated with her father’s consent. The event was celebrated by Penny Song, with an improvisation styled the Epoch Ardens, Long Bow assisting with a transposition of High Water to Fair Water. But from their lack of precedental knowledge pertaining to Manatitlan history, and of love independent of the body’s instinctive materialism for the bombastic usury of imagination in word portrayal, their poetical ovations would have been deemed tame unaided by their skillful rendition in the well timed measure of song with the instrumental accompaniment of zithern and gourd. This transcript, of an event so varied in its bearings, will afford you a more correct insight into the condition of our Roman colonists, than tracings from historical records, and statistical accounts, of which you will be advised at our earliest leisure.
Titview.

Nota Bene.—Our wives have not been idle, but under the direction of Oluisandria have auramented many of the Giga women of Rome, who with silent example emulate the family of Indegatus.

At the conclusion of Titview’s letter, the Dosch stated that the initial voyagers of the second falcon era found the colonists of Constantinople and Jerusalem in a still more prosperous condition than those of Rome, and equally rejoiced in the fulfillment of expectant waiting. But as they presented the same characteristic features of dogmatic rule, with caste variations, having their origin in the degree of control exercised by individuals over their own habits, for the control of the masses, the opposition to colonistic example was in the main the same. “Now, in company of Mr. Welson, I will leave you to meditate upon the examples I have adduced of Giga and Animalculan humanity under the rule of instinctive habits 252and customs engendered from the unreason of the stomach in its control of the brain, until your letters arrive from the other side of the precedental gulph to strengthen the contrast between your past and present thoughts. In the meantime you can study, with our auramental aid, the habits of professional instinct cultivated by the adjunct members of the corps, in adverse defiance of Heraclean example and our thought substitutions. Although formalistically influenced to habits of outward conformity, neither Dr. Baāhar or the curators of sound, and artist, have changed in thought from precedental routine; and in their present mood, would relate the events which have transpired as surface matters of fact, for publication, or scientific gossip, and the excitement of wonder and surprise in the gaping multitude who throng with open ears lyceums and public lecture rooms, for drum impressions. Your college and scientific professors can be truthfully likened to your railroad locomotives, which swiftly progress forwards and backwards on their rails, but once off their tracks are helpless, from their own resources, to move themselves or their trains. But with the stage gradations of instinct now open to your view, you can readily discover and test the animus source of present happiness with the realities of its impression as an assurance of immortality.”