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 the 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 the 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 Maniculæ; 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 with 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, as 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, an

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 the 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 of 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 from 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, assumed

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 to-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 the 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 of 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 in 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 the 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 the 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 skill 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 impressions 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 warm

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 in 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 effects

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 antennæ, 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 enthusiasm 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 queen 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?”

With 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 previously 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.

When 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

portrayals 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 maiden 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 example. 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 of 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.

The 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 upon

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

gold 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 ægis 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 disjuncture 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 we 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 the

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 ritual 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 in 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 offer 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 then, 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 myself 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 had 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; but

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 the 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 and 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.”