The sons and daughters of Indegatus had become so well instructed in the
art of propagating and training falcons, and withal so much interested
under the direction of the volantaphs, that little danger was
apprehended of another interruption in the supply. When all the
preliminaries required for the voyage across the Atlantic had been well
matured, Soartus, with a fleet of five well equipped falcons, and fifty
giantesco companions with their families started from Maniculæ on their
adventurous flight, and on the evening of the third day arrived at Corvo
without accident, and were overjoyed, in their descent to perch on the
Corcovado, to observe signals of welcome as if their coming had been
anticipated by premonition. In explanation, after a joyful welcome, the
Corcovadians said, that a watch had been kept constantly on the alert in
expectation of their reappearance, during the interval of the many
centuries which had elapsed since the last falcon departure. From
whatever cause the delay, their confidence had grown in strength, that
it would be overcome in time by the enterprise of their parentcedors.
This reunion of the Manatitlans with their Corcovadian colonistic
outposts occurred on or about the 17th day of August, 1071 of your era.
The voyage had been well sustained by the novice falcons,
notwithstanding their recently acquired art of taking flying fish, and
feeding while beating support with their wings under the favoring aid of
the parachute. But hunger is an apt teacher of method with available
means for its appeasement. The first warning the aeronauts received of
their near approach to the land of their destination was the invasion
from the windward of a suffocating odor, of the most disgusting taint,
that pervaded the howdahs and assailed their olfactories, causing a
violent retching, that made them apprehend pending calamity. But the
pilots, when sufficiently recovered from the sudden invasion, consulted
their charts of odor currents “laid down” by old navigators, and found
that the nauseating cause of alarm proceeded from the confluent waft of
Celtic and Congo exhalations from humanity, with the conjunctive loom of
garlic odor in eructation from the inhabitants of Portugal, Spain, and
south of France conveyed seaward by the evening land breeze, marked
_Fœdisima allium exhalata ab homine_. After giving vent to humorous
instinctive comparisons referring to the gross habits necessary for the
production of odors so foul in their distant waft, the old peak of
rendezvous on the island of Corvo saluted their glad vision.
Our reception by the Corcovadians was affectionate beyond comparison,
fully enlisting our utmost resources in reciprocation. When the
exuberance of our mingled congratulations had subsided into the calm
current of sympathetic inquiry, we soon became aware of their loving
troth to Manatitlan habits and customs. In evidence of the lealty of
their alliance they had diminished a third in numbers, as they averred,
with a marked improvement in all the essentials of affectionate purity
and goodness, manifest alike in the conservation of physical and
thoughtful development. In answer to our solicitous inquiries with
regard to the welfare of the Animalculan and Giga population of the
islands and mainland, they answered that the inhabitants of the islands
had become more barbarously enlightened and destructive in tendency than
they were in our ancestors’ time; our Mouthpat deportations having added
fuel to the degenerative tendency of the islanders. Still the good
example of the colonists had attracted a desire on the part of parents
that their children should be educated under their instruction.
After a week’s sojourn with the Corcovadians, Soartus continued his
flight to Rome, taking with him as many of the islanders as the howdahs
could accommodate. “Soaring to our first poise above the peaks of the
Asturian mountains, we hailed with matin song of praise the broad disc
of the sun as it reflected, in ascendency from the horizon, the
inequalities of the countries beneath in panoramic light and shadow. As
it rose in the full splendor of its mellowed morning beams, dispelling
with sparkling reflection the dewy mists of night, a scene of surpassing
beauty greeted our vision. From north to south, on the western confines
of the Iberian peninsula, a lofty range of intervaled mountains formed
an inviting attraction for the mist clouds, which dispensed their
moisture as an ever replenishing source of rivers and streams, that in
descent received tributary contributions rendering with their water
supply the valleys fertile. In continuation from the extreme south, a
sea-coast range of lesser height formed an interior basin, by circle
inclosure to the east and north. Within this, cities and hamlets were
scattered with seeming indications of peaceful repose. Our eyes were
held entranced with the beautiful scene; and we wondered how man, gifted
with rational powers of discernment, could fail to discover in the
lovely blendings Creative indications designed for his direction in the
paths of peace and purity. The falcons, left to the guidance of their
own pleasurable instincts, just cleared the topmost sprays of the trees
in their gliding circuits, but in soaring above villages and cities the
volantaphs raised their flight beyond the reach of missile weapons.
While passing over the city of Leon from north to south, we saw men,
women, and children, flocking in crowds to the western gate. Curious to
learn the cause of this early commotion, so unwonted from the
descriptions we had read of Iberian habits, the falcons were directed
over the point of attraction. Clearing in circling descent the spires
and towers of the cathedral church, our ears were saluted with the
mingled bellowings of a seemingly enraged animal, and loud shouts
arising from a multitudinous collection of voices pitched in range from
the shrill stridency of childhood, through the medium grades of
maturity, to the vacuous piping tones of senility. Over-reaching the
gate towers, we beheld collected in an amphitheatre within wooden
barriers, a large concourse of people, intently gazing with boisterous
plaudits upon an encounter between a horned animal of the quadruped
species and armed men with garments covered with tinsel. The sides of
the enraged beast were dabbled and trickling with gore, from the many
wounds inflicted by the knives and spears of the “sportsmen.” In quick
apprehension of the effect of this cruel pastime, which had caused our
wives to give utterance to a cry of pitying horror, the volantaphs
suddenly depressed the falcon’s tail from the “bishop’s run to the
pope’s nose” causing it to fan-spread, intercepting the view of objects
beneath from the howdah; then soaring to a poise, soon left the
revolting scene and arbiters of cruel instinct beyond the compass of
eyes and ears. One of our Corcovadian correlatives then explained the
nature and origin of the amusement. He said that it was styled by the
Spanish a taurista, and when it commenced at sunrise it was styled
“taurista hiquete para almuerzo.” The practice was said to have been
derived originally from a race inhabiting an island in the northern
ocean, who utilized the flesh of the slain brutes, and as a sequence
assimilated their pugnacious characteristics.
“Here the volantaph directed our attention to the cultivated beauties of
the Apuljarras of the Sierra Constantina, glowing in the morning sun
with the brightest tints of verdure. Wooded and vine-covered slopes in
ever varying contrast with the colored transitions of Moslem taste in
the adornment of their dwellings, offered the strongest evidence of
peaceful desire, notwithstanding minarets indicating fanatical worship
abounded in cities, villages, and hamlets. As we neared these scenes,
citizens and busy cultivators were seen engaged in their varied
occupations, their forms reduced by distance from giga size to tits,
reminded us of our own happy Manatitlan homes. The swift flight of the
falcons conveyed the impression, from change in perspective, of gliding
transitions of the same persons into varied employments, as if endowed
with illimitable versatility. These pleasing illusions, which in slower
flight, and nearer approach, would have truthfully depicted the
miserable realities of servile selfishness, so much dreaded in foreboded
encounter with the Giga races of Europe and Asia, caused Uffea, the wife
of Soartus, to exclaim, with a long drawn sigh—“If they could only see
and know us, I am sure they could not resist our happy example that
would make this scene a reality? They surely would not refuse a joyous
boon that would make these blooming valleys and verdant hills echo with
songs of gladness raised in morning and evening praise? What joy for the
future Manatitlan voyagers while floating over these lovely creations,
if our people could be made the means of making these groves and hill-
sides resound with songs of praise to unite in their fullness, with our
peoples, in mid air responses?” Our hopeful sighs united with the desire
that her vision might prove prophetic. But alas, our falcons had scarce
attained their poise for descent to the Valentinian shore, when fierce
human cries, and the loud clangor and blasts from cymbals and trumpets,
resounded from the plain below. The volantaphs reverse in the direction
of the falcons for descent, brought into view two hosts engaged in
battle encounter, each in defiant utterance shouting their war cries,
one, “Dios y Santiago,” and the opposed “Allah é Profeta.” No persuasion
could induce our wives to venture a glance toward the fearful scene, and
at their request the volantaphs changed the falcon’s course to shut out
the view.
Our Corcovadian correlative in defining the casus belli, said, that
those fighting under the standard that bore the device of a grotesque
head covering, supported by crossed keys, were styled Christians, and
the words, God and Saint James, which they ejaculated with their blows,
were the names of the alleged author and favorite supporter of their
creed, which theoretically inculcated peace and goodwill among men.
While those arrayed under the crescent banner, who were as vehemently
calling upon their god and prophet, were enjoined by their creed to
destroy all who denied the divinity of the prophet. Both alike, in
practice, upheld the absurd inconsistency of their creeds with the
destructive fanaticism of instinctive passion. “As you will in Rome be
forced to give heed to the brutal enactments practiced under the style
of religion, and opposing variations in Constantinople and Jerusalem, it
will be well to advise you of the texts that are quoted in train by the
Christian sect, who are exhorted, in the battle cry, to strike for the
God of Israel, and Saint James,—kill and spare not! The grateful teeth
of the saws read in this wise, Do good to those who despitefully treat
thee! He that smiteth thee on one cheek turn to him the other also! He
that gives to the poor, lendeth to the Lord. Cast your bread upon the
waters, and after many days it will return to you increased an hundred
fold. These renderings of implied selfishness in mild vapory language,
you have seen exemplified in enactments this morning; but you have still
to undergo the painful infliction of sympathy for physical torments that
priestcraft imposes, with the anticipation of ‘hellish’ power, for the
punishment of dissenting heretics. The Moslems, who are fighting under
the crescent standard, advocate sensual lunacy, with the prescribed
belief in a heavenly haram peopled with houri,—a name that they bestow
upon sensuously beatific women, who in Christian terms are styled
angels,—these are used as lures for inciting the lusts of the faithful
in blind subserviency to the commands of their leaders. Like their
Christian opponents, the masses depend solely upon priestly
interpretation for the reconciliation of contradictory passages in their
creed, openly bestowing their reverential fealty upon the sensually mad,
who are called saints or santons, esteeming the touch of their lewd
filthiness as a vise for heavenly reward. Their priests, who are styled
dervishes, wear the same hermaphrodite vestments in ceremonial
enactments that distinguish their Christian counterparts, deriving
oracular inspiration from dizziness invoked by rapid whirling gyrations.
But as I see that you are oppressed with sorrowful disgust, in view of
the rank stupidity you are about to encounter, we will allow you, with
these premonitions, to verify the construction we give of the ancient
giga Roman senator’s apothegm, which should have been, ‘whom the gods
wish to destroy, they first make sensually mad.’ With the instinctive
example of destructive hatred inculcated as a morning lesson for
appetizing the kindred germ of children’s passions, in the bloody
struggle between inhuman art aids and brute strength, exhibited in the
bull’s blind rage, we can easily fill the intervening space in life with
occupations in qualification for the battle enactments of the meridian.”
With the volantaph’s announcement that he was about to bring the falcon
to a poise which would afford the occupants of the howdah an equidistant
view of the peninsulas of Spain and Italy, a retrospective glance was
cast backward. The keen Manatitlan sight, intensified with ardent
admiration for the glowing beauties of the Iberian landscape, soon
became absorbed in tracing the rare combinations of mountain and valley
verdure, merging and varying in blending tints from the sun’s declining
cast of light and shadow, until startled with Uffea’s sudden call, Alew!
(look!) Recalled by her startled cry, our attention was attracted by her
steadfast look, to the Valentian shore, and there beheld the victorious
Christians in pursuit of the vanquished Moslems, vindicating the cry of
their priests, “Kill and spare not.” “Alas,” tearfully sighed Uffea, “is
it not enough that they yield the victory? of what avail the bodies of
the flying, living or dead, that the victors still ruthlessly pursue and
slay?”
Anxious to escape from even a distant view of the carnage, the volantaph
brought the falcon to a poise and in descent opened to view the
peninsula of Italy. In anxious search for the abiding place of their
colonistic correlatives, their attention was soon attracted to the
largest collection of buildings, and as the falcon’s circuits narrowed
in near approach, their eyes sought for signals of recognition. These,
from a “bird’s eye” view chart of the prominent buildings in the
vicinage of Rome, soon became visible, not only from the coliseum, the
chief settlement of their colonies, but from every town and hamlet
within the reach of vision. With a near approach to the arcades every
available place in the Ionic range was filled to overflowing with
beaming faces and outstretched arms in token of joyful welcome. But a
few moments elapsed before the falcons were safely moored in the old
“New Port,” and the howdahs thronged with forms and faces that required
no introduction by speech for the test of nationality. Without words,
joyful tears, sighs, kisses, and embraces were not alone conceded as the
special privilege of womanly affection, but the interchange of these
instinctive tokens under the kindly promptings of gladness became
general. If there was hesitation indicating speech, those on the outside
pressed forward to interrupt the useless waste of words. For at least a
full half hour this voiceless scene continued unabated, then the prætor
of Coliseo parleyed. “Citizens of Romelia, forbear? What have these, of
our kin, done in the lapse of ages, that you suffocate them with kisses
and embraces? Are they, in the fullness of our joy, to be denied the
viaticum of welcome words? or do you intend to despatch them with the
silent interdiction of tidings we have waited and longed for while yet
unborn to the world of mortality? Make way for your prætor! Fie upon
you, Oluissandra! that you, the wife of the chief magister of Coliseo,
should fail to use your tongue in speech, when its words would be
welcome!”
With this laughing admonition a tall active giantesco sprang into the
howdah, and seizing a sprightly medium woman by the shoulders, as she
was about to embrace Uffea, turned her briskly round, with the
exclamation, “Now for some system? I am ashamed of you, Olui! Where is
your boasted presence of mind and pity? and voice, so easily aroused in
gratuitous sympathy for your Giga auramentees? Do you suppose that this
little handful of women can withstand the battery of Coliseo’s
thousands, softly placable as they are, without having their lips and
faces flayed? Now Signorina Manatitliana, this is my wife Oluissandra
Peasiffea, of the twelfth generation in descent from the Peasiffeas of
Maniculæ,—that is, I am, and she shares my loving pedigree, with a
worthy merit that exceeds my own.”
Before the last clause, Uffea had embraced the wife of the Coliseo
prætor with cousinly warmth. The husband laughingly thanked her for
honoring his spouse with such affectionate returns upon the strength of
relationship, but hoped that the slight deviation from the “giga lineal”
would not prove a bar to the full expression of loving confidence. This
diversion set the women’s tongues in motion, with trills and fugues,
which were followed by the men’s deeper tones, in more measured accents
of curious inquiry. With the sun’s decline all united in a hymn of
thanksgiving. As the gathering shades of twilight deepened, Oluissandra
reminded her husband that the Manatitlan howdahs were poorly adapted for
the reception of the prætor of Coliseo’s guests upon an occasion so
extraordinary? “If the public records are to be trusted,” she said,
“they will bear testimony that it has been customary for the chief
magisters to offer their guests the hospitality of their houses. It will
hardly consort with precedent, if the scribe should in record addenda
state that the prætor Peasiffea entertained his Manatitlan relatives in
their own howdahs, at the reunion of their peoples, after centuries of
separation. I am sorry,” she continued, “that courtesy obliges me to
give you this public reproof, but your ‘head and heart’ should have been
on the alert to give a suitable welcome, as the long delay might conjure
sensitive doubts questioning the sincerity of your joy.”
The prætor gave his wife a look of quizzical gratitude at this rejoinder
couched in Giga style, reminding the chief and his wife of the Dosch’s
humorous sallies. In like manner they were constantly reminded of home
faces and scenes by revived similitude in impression. Among the
Manatitlans, and their Corcovadian correlatives, the questioning query
would pass, “Who does this or that person remind you of?” or “How
familiar that voice sounds.” When the resemblance was mentioned, the
likeness was found to have been transmitted by collateral branches. The
prætor, acting upon his wife’s suggestion, our falcons received the
attention they required from Coliseo volantaphs, the mews having been
kept in readiness for their reception from generation to generation, in
constant expectation of their reappearance. Our own apartments, which
adjoined those of the prætor, were in the foliated cyma of the capital
surmounting the second arch of the Corinthian Arcade. On our way the
prætor pointed out the improvements devised and executed by his
predecessors, regretting that their comparatively indestructible works
should be ingrafted upon one of the perishable follies of the Roman
empire for its more extended time durability.
At dawn, on the morning succeeding our arrival, anxious throngs were
awaiting to greet us with salutations of joyful welcome. Many of these
had come from distant districts to participate in the rejoicings of an
occasion so auspicious for the united welfare of the colonies. Among the
visitors, there came from the St. Angelo department the Dosch of
Romalia. He had started with the first announcement of the falcons, and
traversed the city of the gigas during the height of one of their
saturnalian feasts of flesh, which precedes the lighter indulgences of
fasting upon a fish and lentil diet. After the morning salutations, the
falcons were employed in excursions for the practical instruction of the
native volantaphs. On the third day after our arrival, the Dosch and
prætor consulted the chief of the Manatitlans upon a subject that had
been a source of disquietude to the colonists.
“We have deferred the unpleasant subject we are about to introduce, to
the latest possible moment consistent with the responsibility of our
charge,” said the prætor of Coliseo, “that the impression of our welcome
might remain cheerful until you had fully compared the extent of our
worthiness with your expectations. The sooner anxiety is dispelled with
a knowledge of impending evil the better. The Mouthpat seed our mutual
ancestors sowed, just before the close of the first falcon era, in
taking root assimilated with the native Animalculan races, and in
process imparted their own deleterious habits and prejudices to their
entertainers. With a wider scope for the gratification of their sensual
instincts, they soon united with the democratic rabble of Rome in
opposing what they termed our pedantic puritanism. With their coadjutive
stimulation our allies in the exampled practice of purity and goodness
were subjected to annoyances and persecutions and were denied the right
of local option, as natives, in selecting for themselves a choice of
education for their children. As we could not extend our protection to
the good throughout the broad expanse of Rome, we established self-
supporting colonies in the country as asylums of resort for the
oppressed, so that in consolidated association they might receive our
more effective support and aid. Still, in defiance of intimidation and
actual injuries, we had more applications for the admission of Roman
children to our schools than we could accommodate. The deported
Mouthpats, from the first, became adherent imitators of Giga habits and
customs, and fanatically zealous in support of the Catholic dogmas.
Before their advent, the Animalculans of Rome had been content that the
Giga priests should enact their parts in ceremonial worship. But the
Mouthpats urged that the practice of vicarious worship through a race
barred from direct communication by mouth interlocution was a subterfuge
of the most damnable tendency. Their labors for the reconstruction of
the ritualistic tenets, and regeneration of the Animalculans from
proxied dependency upon Giga religious administration, was finally
rewarded with the election of a pope of Mouthpat descent. This pope,
Innocent the First, in Mouthpat designation, now occupies the silicoth
residences relinquished to the first cargo of his ancestors, by ours on
their removal to the Coliseum. In imitation of Giga example, although he
claims higher merit from his strict administration of the ordinances of
the church, he has established a court of inquisition for the trial and
punishment of heretics.
“One of the first acts of the court was the proclamation of an interdict
prohibiting the Romans from holding communication with the Coliseos
under the penalty of excommunication from the only true and holy church.
We well understood the term excommunication in context, although the
court was wary in using threats of torture and death, against the
parents who had entrusted their children to our care, until they had
tested our disposition by overt acts of intimidation. For this purpose
they have arrested the parents of our pupils on their return to Rome
after paying their monthly visits to their children. To-morrow they
celebrate a saint’s day, in the calendar of the Mouthpat Church, and are
erecting in the gutter-leads of the church of San Lorenzo, lists with
barriers and the usual requisites necessary for the accommodation of
spectators, and actors that engage in the barbarous follies of a
tournament. But the real object is the inauguration of an inquisitorial
chapter. The pomp and ceremonials only serving as an introductory blind,
that will hold pity in check by arousing the passions with chivalric
show in brutal enactment as a placebo for the final catastrophe. In
order that the pomp might equal that of their Giga exemplars, who are
engaged in preparing for a like celebration, they in anticipation sent
challenges to the most celebrated and valorous representatives of
Animalculan knighthood throughout the courts of Europe, subject to a
like defiance from their Giga contemporaries; whose heralds acted as the
locomotive beasts of burden for the transportation of their parasitic
knights errant. To prevent imposition, the field kings of all the
countries in Christendom, subject to Animalculan sway, were requested to
add their attest to the order and standing of the knight applicants,
also to the service reputation of esquires emulous of achieving the
honorable distinction of wearing golden spurs. The requirements of those
desirous of contending for love and honor in the lists, on roachback
with spear and sword, were—to be of pure lineage, of not less than three
generations, in affirmed descent, free from the attaint of mesalliance.
The squires were to be second sons of a parentage alike eligible for the
distinctions of knighthood. That the trains of each knight should be
well satisfied with their allotment, the third day was set apart for
their contention with arms suited to their stations in life; ample means
were to be furnished for the eating and drinking entertainment of all
comers. The knights summoned had already arrived in train with the Gigas
who had been cited for the tournament in preparation for the first
crusade designed for the redemption of the holy sepulchre from the
possession of the infidel Saracens, in which the Animalculans will also
engage. The first course, in this tournament of human instinct, will be
inaugurated after a grand high mass, to be held in conjunction with the
Gigas, the priests of both races joining in the ceremonial
administration of the rites. After the grand ‘entre’ the first course
will be run between Count Marceroni, the Roman champion, and any knight
bold enough to accept his challenge. The first encounters are to be on
roachback with spears, in support of the affirmed superiority, in
beauty, of the contestant’s countrywomen, or “ladies,” in the style of
the challenge. The proclamation sets forth that the encounter will be
conducted in freedom from the slights of incantation, or other
surreptitious advantages, in fair and open battle, The first unroached
will be declared vanquished, yielding to the victor the right of
heralding the supremacy of his countrywomen’s beauty, with the privilege
of selecting from them a queen to reign during the continuance of the
jousts, as the empress paramount of love, honor, and beauty. The second
day’s joust will be a contention with axes, maces, and thorn sticks; the
victor will be awarded the privilege of selecting a lady to preside over
the distribution of prizes to the successful in the melée, or herd
encounters of third day’s strife.
“This sketch of the announced proceedings, will give you an idea of the
amusements patronized by the Gigas under the ‘angelic’ supervision of
women, with the sounding style of chivalric. But with both races, the
preliminary amusements are devised as placebos to invite in transition
awe, rather than indignation and horror for the final tragedy of human
sacrifice. Your opportune arrival will, with falcon aid, render our
service effectual in baffling their intended murderous enactment, if our
emprise meets with your approval.”
The chief and his associates warmly approved of the course proposed,
offering to undertake alone the hazard of its successful issue, that the
reproof might be in effect more significant of intention in the event of
future transgressions. The scenes enacted at the tournament, the Dosch
said he would relate in quotation from the chronicler Titview’s letter
to Giganteo.