THE INGENIOUS-ASTONISHING GROUP
This large division of narratives of imaginary events is somewhat
hard to name briefly, though it is definitely enough marked off as a
distinct class when we consider the tone, the source, and the purpose.
The whole air of these extravagant tales is that of sophistication. No
reader however ignorant would mistake them for stories of primitive
people. Though they sometimes contain supernatural creatures as actors,
though they recount stupendous deeds, though they often proceed in
simple diction, yet the reader is never confused as to the state of
mind of the narrator. It is plain that, however much he may seem to
wish to create credulity in the mind of the reader, the story-teller
has none in his own mind. He is a non-believer--or better perhaps, a
"make-believer," in the children's sense of the term. The source of his
narrative is ingenuity, and the purpose is astonishment or satire. In
the present study we shall notice four smaller divisions of this group:
(1) the tale of mere wonder, (2) the imaginary voyage with a satiric
or instructive purpose, (3) the tale of scientific discovery and
mechanical invention, (4) the detective story and other tales of pure
plot.
I. The Tale of Mere Wonder
[Collections of wonder stories]
In the species Tales of Mere Wonder, we mean to classify those stories
of marvels that are told with the simple purpose of astonishing.
The adventures of Sinbad the Sailor are typical. He comes upon a
bird's egg, for instance, which he at first mistakes for the dome of
a cathedral, or walks in a valley covered with diamonds the size of
apples. The "Persian Tales" like the Arabian "Thousand and One Nights"
are stories of wonder and enchantment. Though they are very old,
many of them much older than their written form and traceable to the
traditions of various countries, these Oriental stories as we have them
to-day are not folk-tales in the strict sense of the term. They are put
into a frame-work and are acknowledged to be narratives of ingenuity.
The two earlier sets, translated into French, produced many imitations.
Besides these there are the "Tartar Tales," the "Chinese Tales," "Mogol
Tales," the "Turkish Tales," and so on. The most literary and perhaps
the most valuable from the point of view of real thinking displayed in
them are the very modern Oriental stories of George Meredith, published
under the title "The Shaving of Shagpat." They are all wonder tales
though extremely philosophical. Robert Louis Stevenson has given us the
"New Arabian Nights."
[Suggestions for writing]
To write one of these exaggerations you need only recall your own or
other persons' attempts at the fireside when the stock of folk stories
has run low. You address your efforts to your eight and ten-year-old
brothers who have got past Jack-the-Giant-Killer and are in the stage
of development that the people of the twelfth century were to whom
Marie de France told her fables and her stories of mere wonder. The
fine ladies and gentlemen of Henry the Second's day loved to hear of
costly robes and magic carpets and jewelled beds worth half a kingdom,
that came at the touch of a ring or at the murmuring of a secret
phrase. Unfortunate princes, too, they enjoyed being told about, who
allowed themselves to be misled by wily councilors, and lost for a time
their kingdoms; beautiful princesses who sat enchanted in gorgeous
underground palaces, waiting their deliverers; wonderful plants with
otherwhere unheard-of properties; and animals with stupendous powers,
like the monstrous birds that the Arabian writer says carried Nimrod
through the air in a cage or with out-stretched wings sheltered
Solomon's army from the sun. Chaucer, you know, began and
"left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride."
This horse had a screw in his ear. If one got upon his back, turned
the screw, and whispered a word, one might be instantly in the kingdom
one named. If you can not dream out an original oriental story of your
own, you might finish this of Chaucer's--The Squire's Tale. Remember
that probability is not called for, but only magnificence, splendor,
magic, daring, and success on the part of your hero or heroine. Either
may have wealth untold, dominion unlimited, and knowledge supernatural.
Your diction may range from the simplest and the baldest to the most
luxuriant and extravagant. Whatever matches your subject, no matter how
extravagantly improbable, will be acceptable.
[Medieval tales of chivalry]
Like the stories of mere wonder in--fact a blending of them with
legend--were the medieval tales of chivalry in the later and perverted
editions. The elements are the same as those of the wonder tale, with
the addition of riotous history; that is, the using of any deed of any
hero for him or for someone else, with all the glamour of magic and
luxuriance thrown about it.
[Heroic romances]
To modern readers a very uninteresting perversion of this type of
narrative is the heroic romance of the second and third quarters of
the seventeenth century, best represented perhaps by _Le Grand Cyrus_
of Madam de Scudéri. Nobody, I suppose, to-day who had not a theory to
prove could be persuaded to wade through the 6,679 pages of the ten
octavo volumes of this walty story. But although the particular style
of writing of Scudéri and her contemporaries has passed away, and
fortunately never can return--thanks to Molière and Boileau--fantastic
and gorgeous prose history had great popularity both on the Continent
and in England for fifty years. The attitude of mind of those narrators
is found in many moderns; namely, a desire to deal only with titled
folk, or at least millionaires, for fear that heroes of lower social
standing or smaller bank accounts might be dull.
Our present-day mixers of fact and non-fact lean toward the probable,
of course, rather than the marvelous, and would resent being classed
with the heroic romancers; but any narrator would be proud to be able
to tell well, as everybody with a child-like heart is delighted to
listen to, an out-and-out story of mere wonder.
=Story of the City of Brass=
There was in olden times in Damascus of Syria a caliph named
Abdel-Melik, the son of Marwan. One day as he was sitting with the
great men of his empire, many of them being kings and sultans, a
discussion took place among them about the tales of ancient nations.
They called to mind the stories of Solomon, the son of David, and
the power God gave him over genies and wild beasts and birds and
other creatures, and they said, "We have heard, from those who lived
before us that God bestowed not upon any one the like of that which he
bestowed upon Solomon. So great was his power that he used to imprison
genies and evil spirits in bottles of brass, and pour molten lead over
them, and seal this cover with his seal."
Then Talib, one of the sultans, related that a man once embarked in a
ship with a company of others, and they sailed away towards the island
of Sicily, until a storm arose which drove them out of their course and
carried them to the shores of an unknown land. This happened during
the darkness of the night. In the morning, there came out to them from
caves in that land, black men who wore no clothes, and who neither
spoke nor understood any language. They had a king of their own race,
and he knew Arabic. The king, with a party of his companions, came to
the ship, saluted and welcomed those who were in it, and inquired who
they were and to what country they belonged. When they informed him, he
said to them, "No harm shall befall you. There hath not come to us one
of the sons of Adam before you."
The king then entertained them with a banquet, and after this the
people of the ship went to amuse themselves on the shore. There they
found a fisherman who had cast his net into the sea to catch fish.
He drew the net up, and in it was a bottle of brass stopped with
lead, which was sealed with the seal of Solomon, the son of David.
The fisherman broke the seal, and there came forth from the bottle a
blue smoke which united with the clouds of heaven, and instantly they
heard a horrible voice saying, "Repentance! repentance! O prophet of
God!" Then they saw the smoke form into a man of frightful appearance
and gigantic size, whose head reached as high as a mountain, and
immediately he disappeared from before their astonished eyes.
The blacks thought nothing of this event, but the people of the ship
were terrified at the spectacle, and they went to the king to inquire
about it. In answer to their inquiries the king said, "This is one of
the genies who rebelled against King Solomon, and Solomon, to punish
them, imprisoned them in bottles and threw them into the sea. When the
fisherman casts his net, it generally brings up one of these bottles,
and when the bottle is broken, a genie comes forth, and thinking that
Solomon is still living, he repents and cries out, "Repentance! O
Prophet of God!"
The Prince of the Faithful, Abdel-Melik, wondered very much at this
story, and he said, "I desire to see some of these bottles." Talib
replied, "O Prince of the Faithful, thou canst do so. Send to thy
viceroy in the western country, the Emeer Moosa, ordering him to
journey to the sea we have mentioned, and to bring what thou desirest
of these bottles." The Prince of the Faithful approved of this advice,
and he sent Talib himself with a letter to the Emeer Moosa.
When the Emeer received the letter he read it, and he said to Talib,
"I hear and obey the command of the Prince of the Faithful." Then
he called together his great men, and he inquired of them about the
bottles of King Solomon, and they told him to send for Abdes-Samad,
"for," said they, "he is a knowing man and has traveled much. He
is acquainted with the deserts and wastes and the seas, and their
inhabitants, and their wonders, and their countries, and their
districts. Send for him, and he will direct thee to the object of thy
desire." So the Emeer sent for Abdes-Samad, and when he came he said to
him, "O Abdes-Samad, our lord the Prince of the Faithful has commanded
us to get for him some of the bottles of Solomon. I have little
knowledge of the place where they are to be found, but it has been told
to me that thou art acquainted with that country and routes. Wilt thou
then help us to accomplish the wish of the Prince of the Faithful?"
To this Abdes-Samad replied, "O Emeer, the route is difficult, far
extending, and there are few tracks. It is a journey of two years going
and the same returning, and on the way there are dangers and horrors
and extraordinary and wonderful things. Nevertheless, since it is the
wish of the Prince of the Faithful, I am willing to undertake the
journey with thee."
Then they began to make preparations, and as soon as everything was
ready, the Emeer Moosa and Talib and Abdes-Samad set forth, accompanied
by a troop of soldiers, and taking with them all things necessary for
their expedition. They journeyed on till they came to a great palace.
As the gates were opened, and they saw no guards at the doors, they
dismounted from their horses and entered. The rooms were all of vast
size and richly furnished, and the ceilings and walls were decorated
with gold and silver, but in the whole building they did not see a
single human being. In the midst of the palace was a chamber covered
with a lofty dome, rising high into the air, around which were four
hundred tombs. They went into one chamber, and they found in it a table
with four feet made of alabaster, and having this inscription engraved
on it
"Upon this table a thousand one-eyed kings have eaten and a
thousand kings each sound in both eyes. All of them have quitted
the world and taken up their abode in the burial grounds and the
graves."
The Emeer Moosa and his companions took this table with them and
went forth from the palace. Then they proceeded on their journey and
traveled for three days, when they came to a high hill. On the top of
the hill was a horseman of brass with a spear in his hand. The spear
had a flat, wide head, and it was so bright that it almost dazzled
the eyes of the Emeer and his companions. Nevertheless they looked at
it closely, and they were astonished at finding the following words
inscribed upon it:
"O thou who comest unto me, if thou know not the way that leads to
the City of Brass, rub the hand of the horseman, and he will turn,
and then will stop, and in whatever direction he faces when he
stops, travel in that direction without fear, for it will lead thee
to the City of Brass."
When he read this the Emeer Moosa rubbed the hand of the horseman.
Immediately the figure turned round with the speed of lightning, and
when it stopped it faced a different direction from that in which they
had been traveling. The party therefore turned to the way pointed out
by the brazen horseman, and proceeded on their journey. One day they
came to a round pillar of black stone, on the top of which appeared
the upper half of the body of a black giant, or genie, with the lower
part sunk down in the pillar. He was an object frightful to behold. He
had two huge wings and four arms. Two of the arms were like those of a
man, and the other two were like the legs of a lion. He had hair upon
his head like the tails of horses, two eyes like two burning coals, and
he had a third eye in his forehead, like the eye of a lynx, from which
sparks of fire shot forth.
When the Emeer Moosa's party saw this genie they almost lost their
senses through fear, and they turned round to flee away, but the Emeer
told them that in the state in which he was he could do them no harm.
Then Abdes-Samad drew near to the pillar, and raising his voice he said
to the genie, "O thou person, what is thy name, what is thy nature,
and what has placed thee here in this manner!" Immediately the genie
answered saying, "I am a genie and my name is Dahish." [And then he
told them his nature and what had placed him there.]
And then Abdes-Samad said to the genie in the pillar, "Are there in
this place any of the genies confined in bottles of brass from the
time of Solomon?" He answered, "Yes, in the sea of El-Karkar, where
dwell some of the descendants of Noah, whose country the deluge did
not reach. They are separated from the rest of the sons of Adam." "And
where," said Abdes-Samad, "is the way to the City of Brass, and the
place in which are the bottles? What distance is there between us and
it?" The genie answered, "It is near."
The party then proceeded in their journey, and in a little while they
saw in the distance a great black object, and in it there seemed to
be two fires corresponding with each other in position. "What is this
great black object," asked the Emeer Moosa, "and what are these two
corresponding fires?" "Be rejoiced, O Emeer," answered Abdes-Samad;
"it is the City of Brass, and this is the appearance of it that I find
described in the book of hidden treasures--that its wall is of black
stones and it has two towers of brass, which resemble two corresponding
fires; hence it is named the City of Brass."
Hastening on they arrived at the city, and they found that it was
strongly fortified, and that its buildings were lofty, rising high
into the air. Its walls were one hundred and twenty feet high, and it
had five and twenty gates. They stopped before the walk and endeavored
to find one of the gates, but they could not. Then Emeer Moosa said
to Abdes-Samad, "I do not see any gate to this city." Abdes-Samad
answered, "I find it described in the book of hidden treasures that it
has five and twenty gates, and that none of them may be opened but from
within the city."
Then the Emeer Moosa took Talib and Abdes-Samad with him, and they
ascended a mountain which was close by. And looking down upon the city,
they saw it was greater and more beautiful than anything they had ever
beheld. Its palaces were lofty, its domes were shining; rivers were
running within it, and there were delightful gardens with trees bearing
ripe fruit. But they did not see a human being within its walls. It was
empty, still, without a voice, or a cheering inhabitant but the owl
hooting in its gardens, and birds skimming in circles in its areas, and
the raven croaking in its great streets.
After coming down from the mountain they passed the day trying to
devise means of entering the city. At last it occurred to them to make
a ladder, and the Emeer called to the carpenters and blacksmiths and
ordered them to construct a ladder covered with plates of iron. This
work occupied a month, and when it was finished, the ladder was set up
against the wall, and one of the party ascended it. When he reached the
top he stood, and, fixing his eyes towards the city, clapped his hands
and cried out with a loud voice, "Thou art beautiful!" Then he cast
himself down into the city and was killed. Seeing this the Emeer Moosa
said, "If we do this with all our companions, there will not remain one
of them, and we shall be unable to accomplish the wish of the Prince
of the Faithful. Let us depart and have no more to do with this city."
But one of them answered, "Perhaps another may be more steady than he."
Then a second ascended, and he did the same as the first, and then a
third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and they continued to ascend by that
ladder to the top of the wall, one after another, until twelve men of
them had gone, acting as the first had acted.
Abdes-Samad now arose and said, "There is none can do this but myself."
So he ascended the ladder, reciting verses of the Koran until he
reached the top, when he clapped his hands and fixed his eyes. The
people therefore called out to him, "O Abdes-Samad, do not cast thyself
down. If you fall, we all perish." Then Abdes-Samad sat down upon the
wall for a long time, reciting verses of the Koran, after which he
rose and cried out, "O Emeer, no harm shall happen to you, for God
has averted from me the effect of the artifice and fraud of the Evil
One." The Emeer then said to him, "What hast thou seen, O Abdes-Samad?"
He answered, "When I reached the top of the wall, I saw ten damsels,
beautiful to behold, who made a sign to me with their hands as though
they would say, 'Come to us.' And it seemed to me that beneath me
was a sea, or great river, and I desired to cast myself down as our
companions did. But I saw them dead, and I recited some words of the
Koran, and so I cast not myself down. Therefore the damsels departed.
There is no doubt that this is an enchantment contrived by the
inhabitants of the city to keep every one from entering it."
Abdes-Samad then walked along the wall till he came to the two towers
of brass, when he saw that they had two gates of gold, without locks
upon them, or any sign of the means of opening them. He remained
looking at them a long time, and at last he saw in the middle of one of
the gates a figure of a horseman of brass, having one hand stretched
out as though he were pointing with it, and on the hand these words
were inscribed:
"Turn the pin that is in the middle of the front of the horseman's
body twelve times, and then the gate will open."
Abdes-Samad, having read this inscription, examined the horseman, and
found in the middle of the front of this body a pin, strong, firm, and
well fixed. He turned it twelve times, and immediately the gate opened
with a noise like thunder. Abdes-Samad entered, and he walked on until
he came to stairs, which he descended. At the foot of the stairs he
found a place with handsome wooden benches on which there were dead
people, and over their heads were shields, and swords, and bows, and
arrows. One of the dead men, who appeared to be the oldest, was upon
a high bench above the rest. Abdes-Samad thought that the keys of the
city might be with this man. "Perhaps," said he to himself, "he was the
gatekeeper, and these were under his authority." He therefore went up
to the man, and raised his outer garment, and he found the keys hung to
his waist. At the sight of them Abdes-Samad rejoiced exceedingly, and
he took the keys and approached the gate in the wall of the city. He
found that the keys fitted the locks, so he turned them, and pulled
the gate, which opened with a great noise. Then he cried out with a cry
of joy, and the Emeer Moosa rejoiced at the safety of Abdes-Samad, and
the opening of the gate of the city. The people thanked Abdes-Samad
for what he had done, and they all hastened to enter the gate. But the
Emeer Moosa cried out to them, saying, "O people, some accident may
happen, and if all enter, all may perish. Therefore, let half of us
enter and half remain outside."
The Emeer Moosa then entered the gate, and with him half of his troops,
carrying their weapons of war. They saw their companions lying dead,
and they buried them. They then entered the market of the city, which
contained a number of lofty buildings. The shops were open, the scales
hung up, and the stores full of all kinds of goods, but the merchants
were all dead. They passed on to the silk market, in which were silks
and brocades interwoven with gold and silver upon various colors, and
the owners were dead, lying upon skins, and appearing almost as though
they would speak. Leaving these they went on to the market of the money
changers, all of whom they found dead, with varieties of silks beneath
them, and their shops filled with gold and silver. After going through
several other markets they came to a lofty palace, which they entered.
There they found banners unfurled, and swords, and bows, and shields
hung up by chains of gold and silver. In the passages of the palace
were benches of ivory, ornamented with plates of brilliant gold and
with silk, on which were dead men, whose skins had dried upon their
bones. Going into the interior of the palace they came to a great
hall, and four large and lofty chambers, each one fronting another,
and decorated with gold and silver and various colors. In the midst of
the hall was a great fountain of alabaster, over which was a canopy of
brocade, and in the chambers were decorated fountains, and tanks lined
with marble, and channels of water flowed along the floors, the four
streams meeting together in a great tank made of colored marbles.
The Emeer Moosa and his companions now entered the first chamber, and
they found it filled with gold and silver, and pearls and jewels,
and jacinths and precious minerals. They found in it chests full of
red and yellow and white brocades. They then went into the second
chamber, and opened a closet in it, and it was filled with weapons of
war, consisting of gilded helmets, and coats of mail, and swords, and
lances, and other instruments of war and battle. Then they passed to
the third chamber, in which they found closets having upon their doors
closed locks, and over them were curtains worked with various kinds of
embroidery. They opened one of these closets, and found it filled with
weapons decorated with varieties of gold and silver and jewels. From
there they went to the fourth chamber, and it was full of utensils for
food and drink, consisting of various vessels of gold and silver, and
saucers of crystal, and cups set with brilliant pearls, and cups of
carnelian. They took what suited them of these things, and each of the
soldiers carried off what he could.
Then they passed on, and found a chamber constructed of polished marble
adorned with jewels. They thought that upon the floor was running
water, and if any one walked upon it he would slip. The Emeer Moosa
therefore ordered Abdes-Samad to throw upon it something, that they
might be enabled to walk on it, and he did so, and they passed on.
And they found in it a great dome constructed of stones gilt with red
gold. The party had not beheld in all that they had seen anything more
beautiful than this. In the midst of it there was a great dome-crowned
structure of alabaster, around which were lattice windows, decorated
and adorned with oblong emeralds. In it was a pavilion of brocade,
raised upon columns of red gold, and within this were birds, the feet
of which were emeralds. Beneath each bird was a net of brilliant
pearls, spread over a fountain, and by the brink of the fountain was
placed a couch adorned with pearls and jewels and jacinths, on which
sat a damsel resembling the shining sun. Eyes had not beheld one more
beautiful. She wore a garment of brilliant pearls, on her head was a
crown of red gold, on her neck was a necklace of jewels, and upon her
forehead were two jewels the light of which was like that of the sun.
She seemed as though she were looking at the people round about her,
and observing them to the right and left.
When the Emeer Moosa beheld this damsel, he wondered extremely at her
loveliness, and he saluted her respectfully. But Talib said to the
Emeer, "This damsel is dead. There is no life in her. How, then, can
she return the salutation?" And he added, "O Emeer, she is skillfully
embalmed. Her eyes were taken out after her death, and quicksilver put
beneath them, after which they were restored to their places; so they
gleam, and whenever the air puts them in motion the beholder imagines
that she twinkles her eyes, though she is dead." Then they saw that the
couch upon which the damsel sat had steps, and upon the steps were
two slaves, one of them white and the other black. In the hand of one
of them was a weapon of steel, and in the hand of the other a jeweled
sword that dazzled the eyes. Before the two slaves was a tablet of gold
on which was the following inscription:
"O thou, if thou know me not, I will acquaint thee with my name and
descent. I am Tedmur, the daughter of the King of the Amalekites. I
possessed what none of the kings possessed, and ruled with justice.
I gave and bestowed, and lived a long time in the enjoyment of
happiness and an easy life, and emancipated female and male slaves.
Thus I did until death came to my abode, and the case was this:
Seven years in succession came upon us, during which no water
descended on us from heaven, nor did any grass grow for us on the
face of the earth. So we ate what food we had in our dwellings,
and after that we fell upon the beasts and ate them, and there
remained nothing. Upon this I caused the wealth to be brought, and
measured it with a measure, and sent it by trusty men, who went
about with it through all the districts, not leaving unvisited a
single large city, to seek for some food. But they found none, and
they returned to us with the wealth, after a long absence. Then
we exposed to view our riches and our treasures, locked the gates
of the fortresses in our city, and we all died, as thou beholdest
and left what we had built and what we had treasured. This is our
story. Whoever arrives at our city, and enters it, let him take of
the wealth what he can, but not touch anything that is on my body,
for it is the covering of my person, and the attire with which I am
fitted forth from the world. Therefore, let him not seize aught of
it; for he would destroy himself."
The Emeer Moosa, when he read these words, was greatly astonished. Then
he said to his companions, "Bring the sacks, and fill them with part
of these riches and these vessels and rarities and jewels." But Talib
said to him, "O Emeer, shall we leave this damsel with the things that
are upon her? They are things that have no equal, and they are more
than the riches thou hast taken, and will be the best present for the
Prince of the Faithful." But the Emeer replied, "Seest thou, not that
which the damsel hath given as a charge, in the inscription upon this
tablet?" Talib, however, said, "And on account of these words wilt thou
leave these riches and these jewels, when she is dead? What then should
she do with these things, which are the ornaments of the world, and the
decoration of the living? With a garment of cotton this damsel might be
covered, and we are more worthy of the things than she." Then he drew
near to the steps, and ascended them until he reached the spot between
the two slaves, when suddenly one of them smote him upon his back and
the other smote him with the sword that was in his hand, and struck
off his head, and he fell down dead. Seeing this the people were much
terrified, and the Emeer Moosa commanded them to leave the city and
close the gate as it was before.
They then proceeded on until they came in sight of a high mountain
overlooking the sea. In it were many caves in which was a people of
black, clad in hides, whose language was not known. And when the
blacks saw the troops they ran away from them, while their women and
children stood at the entrance of the cave. So the Emeer Moosa said, "O
Abdes-Samad, what are these people?" And he answered, "These are the
objects of the inquiry of the Prince of the Faithful." They therefore
alighted and the tents were pitched and they had not rested when the
king of the blacks came down from the mountain, and drew near to the
troops. He was acquainted with the Arabic language, and when he came
to Emeer Moosa he saluted him, and the Emeer returned his salute and
treated him with honor. Then the king of the blacks said to the Emeer,
"Are ye of mankind, or of the genies?" The Emeer answered, "We are of
mankind, but as to you, there is no doubt that ye are of the genies,
because of the greatness of your size." But the king of the blacks
replied, "Nay, we are a people of the race of Adam, of the sons of Ham,
the son of Noah. And this sea is known by the name of El-Karkar."
The Emeer then said to him, "We are the messengers and servants of the
Caliph Abdel-Melik, and we have come on account of the bottles of brass
that are here in your sea, in which are the genies imprisoned from the
time of Solomon, the son of David. He hath commanded us to bring him
some of them, that he may see them. Wilt thou help us in this matter?"
The king of the blacks replied, "Most willingly." Then he ordered the
divers to bring up from the sea some of the bottles of Solomon, and
they brought up twelve bottles, which the king gave to the Emeer. The
Emeer Moosa was delighted, and Abdes-Samad also, and the soldiers,
on account of the accomplishment of the wish of the Prince of the
Faithful. The Emeer then presented to the king of the blacks many gifts.
Then they bade him farewell, and they journeyed back until they came
to the land of Syria, and went to the palace of the Prince of the
Faithful. The Emeer Moosa told him of all that he had seen, and of the
case of Talib. And the Prince of the Faithful said to him, "Would that
I had been with you that I might have beheld what ye beheld." He then
took the bottles, and proceeded to open one after another, and the
genies came forth from them saying, "Repentance! O Prophet of God! We
will not return to the like conduct ever." After this the Prince of the
Faithful caused the riches to be brought before him, and divided them
among the people.
This is the end of that which hath come down to us of the history of
the City of Brass.
"Stories from the Arabian Nights." Selected and edited by M.
Clarke. (American Book Company.)
=The Magic Ring, the Bird, and the Basket=
The night was clear and cool when Juan and his father went to bed. Soon
they fell asleep, lulled by the wind whistling among the trees. When
midnight came, they were aroused from their sound sleep by the shouting
of men and the roaring of fire. Juan and his father jumped out of the
house to save themselves. As they were hiding under a bamboo tree, four
men came and tied the hands of the father and son with vines. Juan was
strong enough to break the vines, but he did not try to, for fear that
the robbers would kill them. The four men carried the poor captives to
their boat and sailed away. Many of Juan's friends and relatives were
also captured.
As they were sailing southward a terrible storm came. All the boats
were sunk by the merciless waves. Before Juan reached the bottom, for
he could not swim, a very big shark swallowed him. The shark, after
swallowing Juan, went to its home in a big cave under the water. While
he was kicking in the stomach of the shark, his knife fell from his
pocket and the vines with which his hands were tied, broke. He opened
his knife with his hands and teeth, and cut a hole through the stomach
of the shark. Instead of floating to the surface of the water, Juan
began to sink and sink as if something were pulling him downward. At
last he came to a dry place. He met nobody there except a gray-bearded
man, who asked him where he was going. Juan told his story.
"You are unfortunate, my boy," said the old man, "you will have a very
hard time in reaching your home."
"But how may I reach home again?" said Juan.
The old man told him to climb the high mountain which could be seen
from where they were standing. "When you reach the top, jump into the
hole and you will be thrown up to the other world." When Juan was about
to go, the old man gave him a ring. "This ring," he said, "is powerful.
You can conquer the fiercest demon on earth with the help of this
ring. Ask from it anything, food, clothes, and other things, and you
will have what you want. If you want to go to some place, you can reach
it in a second. This ring will carry you to the top of the mountain."
When the old man was through giving the instructions, Juan found
himself on the top of the mountain. Then he jumped into the hole.
Suddenly he was blown up through the water and up in the air. He
fell back on the water. He wished he were on land and instantly he
was carried to a small village full of savages. Juan performed many
miracles for the savages, so they elected him king.
One day they went hunting and soon they caught a deer. While they were
taking off the hide, a big bird swooped and took the deer with it.
Juan clung to the horns of the deer trying to take it from the bird,
but in vain. The bird did not mind Juan for he was very small compared
with it. It alighted on a very high cliff, left Juan and the dead deer
there, and flew away. On the cliff was the bird's nest, and in it were
three diamond-like round eggs which were about three feet in diameter.
Juan asked his magical ring to give him a very big basket. The basket
came. Then he rolled the eggs into the basket. Juan seated himself
between the eggs and asked his ring again to take him and the basket
home. The basket was so heavy that the ring could not make it fly very
fast. While they were sailing in the air, the bird came with its mate.
They held the handle of the basket with their beaks and carried the
basket back to the cliff. The power of the magical ring was helpless
because the birds were very strong. Juan, then, wished to be clad in
armor. So said, so done. But he had no sword, so he asked the ring to
give him one. When the birds reached the cliff, they alighted. Juan
stepped from the basket and drew his sword. Whenever the birds pecked
him, he would strike them on their necks with his sword. After fighting
with him for more than half a day, the birds fell helpless on the rock.
Then the victor, Juan, asked the ring again to take him and the basket
to his old home. When he reached the place, the once flourishing
village was gone. Only a few huts were left standing.--Facundo Esquivel.
II. The Imaginary Voyage with a Satiric or Instructive Purpose
To the class of marvelous tales belong also what are known in France
as "Voyages Imaginaires." In so far as the adventurers meet with
super-extraordinary beings, or ride on fleas of the dimensions of
elephants, or have monstrous spiders weave for a field of battle a web
between the moon and the morning star, or in so far as they sail on
seas of milk to islands of cheese and altogether suspend the semblance
of possibility--in so far are they heroes of absurd tales of wonder.
But the narrators of the stories of imaginary voyages for the most
part had primarily other objects than mere amusement in view; namely,
ridicule of the extravagant narrative by means of imitation and
exaggeration, or ridicule of political and philosophic tenets by absurd
application; or the story-tellers had instruction to give in civic and
social theories by presenting the ideal in contrast with the real.
[Source of the type]
The first example and perhaps the source of this whole species of
narrative is the "True History" of Lucian, which, is professedly
fabulous and satiric. Lucian says that by his seas of milk and islands
of cheese and the like, he is ridiculing the extravagant relations
of the old poets and historians who tell incredible tales. Hundreds
of years after Lucian, Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville by their
marvelous accounts of remote countries set themselves in the class
Lucian satirized. But we will take them up later, since they were real
travellers simply exaggerating what they had seen in order the more
surely to please a perverted historical taste. We are dealing now with
acknowledged imagination. There are many famous imaginary voyages
professedly satiric besides Lucian's. Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac's
"History of the States and Empires of the Moon" is a satire on the
pedantry and scholastic disputations of his age, the early seventeenth
century, concerning the uninhabitableness of the lunar world. To the
moon Bergerac makes an excursion and settles matters for himself. "Niel
Klim's Underground Journey," by Ludvig Holberg of Denmark, is another
famous imaginary trip.
[Swift and Defoe]
But no nation has surpassed England, and none indeed has even equalled
her, in the production of this class of stories. "Gulliver's Travels,"
"Gaudentio de Lucca," and "Robinson Crusoe" are supreme. Swift's
marvelous tale is, of course, satire; Berkley's extravagant one,
philosophy and polemic; Defoe's seemingly true narration, religious
dissent. But in the minds of the critics--and in the mind of every
school boy, I suppose--there is the judgment that Defoe succeeded in
writing the best pure "story" story in all the world. On the one hand,
accordingly, by its content of a sea voyage and a wreck on an unknown
shore and by the controversial purpose of its author, and by the fact
that it became the progenitor of a long line of marvelous narratives,
the story of "Robinson Crusoe" links itself with the species of
imaginary voyages and stands forth as the highest, though because of
its virtues not the most representative, attainment of the class. On
the other hand, "Robinson Crusoe" by its unaffected simplicity of
diction, by its many minute circumstances, by its particularity as
to persons, places, dates, and references, stands at the head as the
greatest and best representative of another type of narratives,--the
story of probable adventures. But one would finally class Defoe's story
with realistic romance.
More typical of the present species, because more extravagant and not
so seemingly actual, is the somewhat charming though long-forgotten
story of the "Voyage of Peter Wilkins," written about 1750 by R.
Paltock or Pultock. In this narrative the author created a new species
of beings, which have been ranked among the most beautiful offsprings
of imagination. In the "Curse of Kehama" Southey acknowledged them as
the origin of the Glendoveers,
"The loveliest race of all of heavenly birth,
Hovering with gentle motion o'er the earth,
Amid the moonlight air,
In sportive flight, still floating round and round."
In Paltock's story they are not fairies, but flying men and women.
In imitation of Bergerac's voyage to the moon there appeared
descriptions of journeys to the various heavenly bodies. The planet
Venus, for instance, afforded opportunity for satire on amatory
tendencies; Mercury, on fraud and avarice; and so on through the other
planets and vices. Ridicule of the predominant passions of individuals
was come at also. The arrant boaster is delectably set forth in the
"Adventures of Baron Munchausen."
To narrate an imaginary voyage, therefore, on lines laid down in the
past, you must take to yourself to begin with either a political and
social theory or a general spirit of ridicule, either an instructive or
a corrective temper.
If you take a political and social theory to establish you must show it
in operation in a realm where there is perfect and ideal wisdom, where
the obstacles in the world do not hold, as they do not in the Happy
Valley, Utopia, and the New Atlantis.
[Suggestion on how to write a satiric imaginary voyage]
If you undertake to ridicule present mistaken tendencies and follies,
your task will be a little harder. First you must work out your
argument somewhat in detail before you begin your voyage, since you
will need to fit adventures, objects, people, and speeches, either by
way of exaggeration or oppositeness, to their modern counterparts.
Next, you should have definitely in mind a few prominent leaders
in the movement or a few promoters of the policy you mean to laugh
at. You may take the portrait and characteristics of these men as
basis, and exaggerate and modify to suit your purpose. Just as a
good cartoonist must know anatomy and the rules of correct drawing,
so a caricaturist and satirist must know real people. It will happen
probably that readers not in the secret of your originals will fail to
recognize them surely, as people now fail to recognize de Bergerac's
and Swift's; yet your story can not but be the livelier and better for
your concrete thinking. And as we now read the "Journey to the Moon"
and "Gulliver's Travels" for the amusing adventures, so your audience
will enjoy your story for the same reason and no other. But you can
hardly create amusing adventures without something to create them of,
and the lives of real people are to be the stuff. This suggestion is
merely the embodiment of the psychological fact that all the chimeras
that man ever thought of are but modifications of real images. Then it
will be well also to remember the convenience of allegory and to use it
upon occasion. In fact, many imaginary voyages are but rough-and-ready
allegories. Yet you must be careful not to over-do the allegory; for
in the fourth place, you should strive for minute versimilitude. The
nearer like the details of a real journey your small incidents are, the
better your readers will be pleased with your large incidents. It is
the little surprises of familiarity among strangeness that create the
emotion of pleasure.
Last of all, and first of all, and altogether requisite is this virtue:
To be a good narrator of imaginary voyages, you must be, like Defoe,
the "best of liars." Nothing is too stupendous to tell if you only know
how to tell it.
=Mellonta Tauta=
On Board Balloon "Skylark,"
April 1, 2848.
Now, my dear friend--now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly that I am
going to punish you for all your impertinences by being as tedious, as
discursive, as incoherent, and as unsatisfactory as possible. Besides,
here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with some one or two hundred
of the _canaille_, all bound on a _pleasure_ excursion (what a funny
idea some people have of pleasure!), and I have no prospect of touching
_terra firma_ for a month at least. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to do.
When one has nothing to do, then is the time to correspond with one's
friends. You perceive then, why it is that I write you this letter--it
is on account of my _ennui_ and your sins.
Get ready your spectacles and make up your mind to be annoyed. I mean
to write at you every day during this odious voyage.
Heigho! when will any _Invention_ visit the human pericranium?
Are we forever to be doomed to the thousand inconveniences of the
balloon? Will _nobody_ contrive a more expeditious mode of progress?
The jog-trot movement, to my thinking, is little less than positive
torture. Upon my word, we have not made more than a hundred miles the
hour since leaving home! The very birds beat us--at least some of them.
I assure you that I do not exaggerate at all. Our motion, no doubt,
seems slower than it actually is--this on account of our having no
objects about us by which to estimate our velocity, and on account of
our going with the wind. To be sure, whenever we meet a balloon we
have a chance of perceiving our rate, and then, I admit, things do not
appear so very bad. Accustomed as I am to this mode of traveling, I
cannot get over a kind of giddiness whenever a balloon passes us in a
current directly overhead. It always seems to me like an immense bird
of prey about to pounce upon us and carry us off in its claws. One went
over us this morning about sunrise, and so nearly overhead that its
drag-rope actually brushed the net-work suspending our car, and caused
us very serious apprehension. Our captain said that if the material of
the bag had been the trumpery varnished "silk" of five hundred or a
thousand years ago, we should inevitably have been damaged. This silk,
as he explained it to me, was a fabric composed of the entrails of a
species of earth-worm. The worm was carefully fed on mulberries--a
kind of fruit resembling a water-melon--and, when sufficiently fat,
was crushed in a mill. The paste thus arising was called _papyrus_ in
its primary state, and went through a variety of processes until it
finally became "silk." Singular to relate, it was once much admired
as an article of _female dress_! Balloons were also very generally
constructed from it. A better kind of material, it appears, was
subsequently found in the down surrounding the seed-vessels of a plant
vulgarly called _euphorbium_, and at that time botanically termed
milk-weed. This latter kind of silk was designated as silk-buckingham,
on account of its superior durability, and was usually prepared for use
by being varnished with a solution of gum caoutchouc--a substance which
in some respects must have resembled the _guttapercha_ now in common
use. This caoutchouc was occasionally called Indian rubber or rubber
of twist, and was no doubt one of the numerous _fungi_. Never tell me
again that I am not at heart an antiquarian.
Talking of drag-ropes--our own, it seems, has this moment knocked a
man overboard from one of the small magnetic propellers that swarm
in the ocean below us--a boat of about six thousand tons, and, from
all accounts, shamefully crowded. These diminutive barques should be
prohibited from carrying more than a definite number of passengers.
The man, of course, was not permitted to get on board again, and was
soon out of sight, he and his life-preserver. I rejoice, my dear
friend, that we live in an age so enlightened that no such a thing
as an individual is supposed to exist. It is the mass for which the
true Humanity cares. By-the-by, talking of Humanity, do you know that
our immortal Wiggins is not so original in his views of the Social
Condition and so forth, as his contemporaries are inclined to suppose?
Pundit assures me that the same ideas were put nearly in the same way,
about a thousand years ago, by an Irish philosopher called Furrier, on
account of his keeping a retail shop for cat peltries and other furs.
Pundit _knows_, you know; there can be no mistake about it. How very
wonderfully do we see verified every day, the profound observation
of the Hindoo Aries Tottle (as quoted by Pundit): "Thus must we say
that, not once or twice, or a few times, but with almost infinite
repetitions, the same opinions came round in a circle among men."
_April 2d._--Spoke to-day the magnetic cutter in charge of the middle
section of floating telegraph wires. I learn that when this species
of telegraph was first put into operation by Horse, it was considered
quite impossible to convey the wires over sea, but now we are at
a loss to comprehend where the difficulty lay! So wags the world.
_Tempora mutantur_--excuse me for quoting the Etruscan. What would
we do without the Atlantic telegraph? (Pundit says Atlantic was the
ancient adjective.) We lay to a few minutes to ask the cutter some
questions, and learned, among other glorious news, that civil war is
raging in Africa, while the plague is doing its good work beautifully
both in Yurope and Ayesher. Is it not truly remarkable that, before
the magnificent light shed upon philosophy by Humanity, the world was
accustomed to regard War and Pestilence as calamities? Do you know that
prayers were actually offered up in the ancient temples to the end that
these evils (!) might not be visited upon mankind? Is it not really
difficult to comprehend upon what principle of interest our forefathers
acted? Were they so blind as not to perceive that the destruction of a
myriad of individuals is only so much positive advantage to the mass!
_April 3d._--It is really a very fine amusement to ascend the
rope-ladder leading to the summit of the balloon-bag, and thence survey
the surrounding world. From the car below you know the prospect is
not so comprehensive--you can see little vertically. But seated here
(where I write this) in the luxuriously-cushioned opened piazza of the
summit, one can see everything that is going on in all directions.
Just now there is quite a crowd of balloons in sight, and they present
a very animated appearance, while the air is resonant with the hum of
so many millions of human voices. I have heard it asserted that when
Yellow or (Pundit will have it) Violet, who is supposed to have been
the first aeronaut, maintained the practicability of traversing the
atmosphere in all directions, by merely ascending or descending until
a favorable current was attained, he was scarcely hearkened to at all
by his contemporaries, who looked upon him as merely an ingenious sort
of madman, because the philosophers (!) of the day declared the thing
impossible. Really now, it does seem to me quite unaccountable how
anything so obviously feasible could have escaped the sagacity of the
ancient _savans_. But in all ages the great obstacles to advancement
in Art have been opposed by the so-called men of science. To be sure,
our men of science are not quite so bigoted as those of old--oh, I
have something so queer to tell you on this topic. Do you know that
it is not more than a thousand years ago since the metaphysicians
consented to relieve the people of the singular fancy that there
existed but _two possible roads for the attainment of Truth_! Believe
it if you can! It appears that long, long ago, in the night of Time,
there lived a Turkish philosopher (or Hindoo possibly), called Aries
Tottle. This person introduced or at all events propagated what was
termed the deductive or _a priori_ mode of investigation. He started
with what he maintained to be _axioms_, or "self-evident truths," and
thence proceeded "logically" to results. His greatest disciples were
one Neuclid, and one Cant. Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme until
the advent of one Hog, surnamed the "Ettrick Shepherd," who preached
an entirely different system, which he called the _a posteriori_ or
inductive. His plan referred altogether to Sensation. He proceeded by
observing, analyzing, and classifying facts--_instantiae naturae_, as
they were affectedly called--into general laws. Aries Tottle's mode,
in a word, was based on _noumena_; Hog's on _phenomena_. Well, so
great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its
first introduction, Aries Tottle fell into disrepute; but finally he
recovered ground and was permitted to divide the realm of Truth with
his more modern rival. The _savans_ now maintained the Aristotelian
and _Baconian_ roads were the sole possible avenues to knowledge.
"Baconian," you must know, was an adjective invented as equivalent to
Hog-ian and more euphonious and dignified.
Now, my dear friend, I do assure you, most positively, that I represent
this matter fairly, on the soundest authority; and you can easily
understand how a notion so absurd on its very face must have operated
to retard the progress of all true knowledge--which makes its advances
almost invariably by intuitive bounds. The ancient idea confined
investigations to _crawling_; and for hundreds of years so great was
the infatuation about Hog especially, that a virtual end was put to all
thinking, properly so called. No man dared utter a truth to which he
felt himself indebted to his _Soul_ alone. It mattered not whether the
truth was even _demonstrably_ a truth, for the bullet-headed _savans_
of the time regarded only the road by which he had attained it. They
would not even look at the end. "Let us see the means," they cried,
"the means!" If, upon investigation of the means, it was found to come
under neither the category Aries (that is to say, Ram), nor under the
category Hog, why then the savans went no farther, but pronounced the
"theorist" a fool, and would have nothing to do with him or his truth.
Now, it cannot be maintained even that by the crawling system the
greatest amount of truth would be attained in any long series of ages,
for the repression of _imagination_ was an evil not to be compensated
for by any superior _certainty_ in the ancient modes of investigation.
The error of these Jurmains, these Vrinch, these Inglitch, and these
Amriccans (the latter, by the way, were our own immediate progenitors),
was an error quite analogous with that of the wiseacre who fancies
that he must necessarily see an object the better the more closely
he holds it to his eyes. These people blinded themselves by details.
When they proceeded Hoggishly, their "facts" were by no means always
facts--a matter of little consequence had it not been for assuming that
they were facts and must be facts because they appeared to be such.
When they proceeded on the path of the Ram, their course was scarcely
as straight as a ram's horn, for they never had an axiom which was an
axiom at all. They must have been very blind not to see this, even in
their own day; for even in their own day many of the long "established"
axioms had been rejected. For example, "_Ex nihilo nihil fit_"; "a body
cannot act where it is not"; "there cannot exist antipodes"; "darkness
cannot come out of light"--all these, and a dozen other similar
propositions, formerly admitted without hesitation as axioms, were,
even at the period of which I speak, seen to be untenable. How absurd
in these people, then, to persist in putting faith in "axioms" as
immutable bases of Truth! But even out of the mouths of their soundest
reasoners it is easy to demonstrate the futility, the impalpability
of their axioms in general. Who was the soundest of their logicians?
Let me see! I will go and ask Pundit and be back in a minute.... Ah,
here we have it! Here is a book written nearly a thousand years ago and
lately translated from Inglitch--which, by the way, appears to have
been the rudiment of the Amriccan. Pundit says it is decidedly the
cleverest ancient work on its topic, Logic. The author (who was much
thought of in his day) was one Miller, or Mill; and we find it recorded
of him, as a point of some importance, that he had a mill-horse called
Bentham. But let us glance at the treatise!
Ah! "Ability or inability to conceive," says Mr. Mill, very properly,
"is in no case, to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth." What
modern in his senses would ever think of disputing this truism? The
only wonder with us must be, how it happened that Mr. Mill conceived it
necessary even to hint at anything so obvious. So far, good--but let
us turn over another paper. What have we here? "Contradictories cannot
both be true--that is, cannot coexist in nature." Here Mr. Mill means,
for example, that a tree must be either a tree or not a tree--that it
cannot be at the same time a tree and not a tree. Very well; but I ask
him why. His reply is this--and never pretends to be anything else
than this--"Because it is impossible to conceive that contradictories
can both be true." But this is no answer at all, by his own showing;
for has he not just admitted as a truism that "ability or inability
to conceive is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic
truth"?
Now I do not complain of these ancients so much because their logic
is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, worthless and fantastic
altogether, as because of their pompous and imbecile proscription
of all other roads of Truth, of all other means for its attainment
than the two preposterous paths--the one creeping and the one of
crawling--to which they have dared to confine the Soul that loves
nothing so well as to soar.
By the by, my friend, do you not think it would have puzzled these
ancient dogmaticians to have determined by which of their two roads it
was that the most important and most sublime of all their truths was,
in effect, attained? I mean the truth of Gravitation. Newton owed it
to Kepler. Kepler admitted that his three laws were guessed at--these
three laws of all laws which led the great Inglitch mathematician to
his principle, the basis of all physical principle--to go behind which
we must enter the Kingdom of Metaphysics: Kepler guessed--that is to
say, imagined. He was essentially a "theorist"--that word now of so
much sanctity, formerly an epithet of contempt. Would it not have
puzzled these old moles, too, to have explained by which of the two
"roads" a cryptographist unriddles a cryptograph of more than usual
secrecy, or by which of the two roads Champollion directed mankind to
those enduring and almost innumerable truths which resulted from his
deciphering the Hieroglyphics?
One word more on this topic and I will be done boring you. Is it not
passing strange that, with their eternal prattling about roads to
Truth, these bigoted people missed what we now so clearly perceive to
be the great highway--that of Consistency? Does it not seem singular
how they should have failed to deduce from the works of God the vital
fact that a perfect consistency must be an absolute truth! How plain
has been our progress since the late announcement of this proposition!
Investigation has been taken out of the hands of the groundmoles and
given, as a task, to the true and only true thinkers, the men of ardent
imagination. These latter _theorize_. Can you not fancy the shout
of scorn with which my words would be received by our progenitors
were it possible for them to be now looking over my shoulder? These
men, I say, _theorize_; and their theories are simply corrected,
reduced, systematized--cleared, little by little, of their dross of
inconsistency--until, finally, a perfect consistency stands apparent
which even the most stolid admit, because it is a consistency, to be an
absolute and an unquestionable truth.
_April 4th._--The new gas is doing wonders, in conjunction with the new
improvement with gutta percha. How very safe, commodious, manageable,
and in every respect convenient are our modern balloons? Here is an
immense one approaching us at the rate of at least a hundred and fifty
miles an hour. It seems to be crowded with people--perhaps there are
three or four hundred passengers--and yet it soars to an elevation
of nearly a mile, looking down upon poor us with sovereign contempt.
Still, a hundred or even two hundred miles an hour is slow traveling
after all. Do you remember our flight on the railroad across the
Kanadaw continent? Fully three hundred miles the hour--_that_ was
traveling. Nothing to be seen, though--nothing to be done but flirt,
feast and dance in the magnificent saloons. Do you remember what an
odd sensation was experienced, when, by chance, we caught a glimpse of
external objects while the cars were in full flight? Everything seemed
unique--in one mass. For my part, I cannot say but that I preferred
the traveling by the slow train of a hundred miles the hour. Here we
were permitted to have glass windows--even to have them open--and
something like a distinct view of the country was attainable.... Pundit
says that _the route_ for the great Kanadaw railroad must have been
in some measure marked out about nine hundred years ago! In fact,
he goes so far as to assert that actual traces of a road are still
discernible--traces referable to a period quite as remote as that
mentioned. The track, it appears, was _double_ only; ours, you know,
has twelve paths; and three or four new ones are in preparation. The
ancient rails are very slight, and placed so close together as to be,
according to modern notions, quite frivolous, if not dangerous, in the
extreme. The present width of track--fifty feet--is considered, indeed,
scarcely secure enough. For my part, I make no doubt that a track of
some sort must have existed in very remote times, as Pundit asserts;
for nothing can be clearer, to my mind, than that, at some period--not
less than seven centuries ago, certainly--the Northern and Southern
Kanadaw continents were _united_; the Kanawdians, then, would have been
driven, by necessity, to a great railroad across the continent.
_April 5th._--I am almost devoured by _ennui_. Pundit is the only
conversible person on board; and he, poor soul, can speak of nothing
but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the attempt to
convince me that ancient Americans _governed themselves_! Did ever
anybody hear of such an absurdity? That they existed in a sort of
every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the fashion of the "prairie
dogs" that we read of in fable. He says that they started with the
queerest ideas conceivable, viz: that all men are born free and
equal--this in the very teeth of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly
impressed upon all things both in the moral and physical universe.
Every man "voted," as they called it--that is to say, meddled with
public affairs--until at length, it was discovered that what is
everybody's business is nobody's, and that the "Republic" (so the
absurd thing was called) was without a government at all. It is
related, however, that the first circumstance which disturbed, very
particularly, the self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed
this "Republic" was the startling discovery that universal suffrage
gave opportunity for fraudulent schemes, by means of which any desired
number of votes might at any time be polled, without the possibility
of prevention or even detection, by any party which should be merely
villainous enough not to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection
upon this discovery sufficed to render evident the consequences, which
were that rascality _must_ predominate--in a word, that a republican
government _could_ never be anything but a rascally one. While the
philosophers, however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity
in not having foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the
invention of new theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a
fellow of the name of _Mob_, who took everything into his own hands
and set up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous
Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a
foreigner, by the by) is said to have been the most odious of all men
that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature--insolent,
rapacious, filthy; had the gall of a bullock with the heart of a
hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint of his
own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his uses, as
everything has, however vile, and taught mankind a lesson which to this
day it is in no danger of forgetting--never to run directly contrary to
the natural analogies. As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found
for it upon the face of the earth--unless we except the case of the
"prairie dogs," an exception which seems, to demonstrate, if anything,
that democracy is a very admirable form of government--for dogs.
_April 6th._--Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk,
through our captain's spy glass, subtends an angle of half a degree,
looking very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a misty day.
Alpha Lyrae, although so very much larger than our sun, by the by,
resembles him closely as regards its spots, its atmosphere, and in
many other particulars. It is only within the last century, Pundit
tells me, that the binary relation existing between these two orbs
began even to be suspected. The evident motion of our system in the
heavens was (strange to say!) referred to an orbit about a prodigious
star in the center of the galaxy. About this star, or at all events
about a center of gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way and
supposed to be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these globes
was declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit in a
period of 117,000,000 of years! _We_, with our present lights, our vast
telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it difficult to
comprehend _the ground_ of an idea such as this. Its first propagator
was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to this wild hypothesis
by mere analogy in the first instance; but, this being the case, he
should have at least adhered to analogy in its development. A great
central orb was, in fact, suggested; so far Mudler was consistent. This
central orb, however, dynamically, should have been greater than all
its surrounding orbs taken together. The question might then have been
asked, "Why do we not see it?" _We_, especially, who occupy the mid
region of the cluster--the very locality _near_ which, at least, must
be situated this inconceivable central sun. The astronomer, perhaps,
at this point, took refuge in the suggestion of non-luminosity; and
here analogy was suddenly let fall. But even admitting the central orb
non-luminous, how did he manage to explain its failure to be rendered
visible by the incalculable host of glorious suns glaring in all
directions about it? No doubt what he finally maintained was merely
a center of gravity common to all the revolving orbs--but here again
analogy must have been let fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about
a common center of gravity, but it does this in connection with and
in consequence of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances
the rest of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed of
an infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle--this idea
of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as merely
the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical, idea--is,
in sober fact, the _practical_ conception which alone we have any
right to entertain in respect to those Titanic circles with which we
have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose our system, with
its fellows, revolving about a point in the center of the galaxy. Let
the most vigorous of human imaginations but attempt to take a single
step toward the comprehension of a circuit so unutterable! It would
scarcely be paradoxical to say that a flash of lightning itself,
traveling _forever_ upon the circumference of this inconceivable
circle, would still _forever_ be traveling in a straight line. That
the path of our sun along such a circumference--that the direction of
our system in such an orbit--would, to any human perception, deviate
in the slightest degree from a straight line even in a million of
years, is a proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient
astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing that
a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief period of
their astronomical history--during the mere point--during the utter
nothingness of two or three thousand years! How incomprehensible, that
considerations such as this did not at once indicate to them the true
state of affairs--that of the binary revolution of our sun and Alpha
Lyrae around a common center of gravity!
_April 7th._--Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had
a fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much
interest the putting of a huge impost on a couple of lintels in the new
temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think that creatures
so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so little resemblance to
humanity, yet evinced a mechanical ingenuity so much superior to our
own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the vast masses which
these people handle so easily, to be as light as our own reason tell us
they actually are.
_April 8th._--Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. A balloon from Kanadaw
spoke us today and threw on board several late papers; they contain
some exceedingly curious information relative to Kanawdian or rather
Amriccan antiquities. You know, I presume, that laborers have for
some months been employed in preparing the ground for a new fountain
at Paradise, the Emperor's principal pleasure garden. Paradise,
it appears, has been, _literally_ speaking, an island time out of
mind--that is to say, its northern boundary was always (as far back as
any record extends) a rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm of the sea.
This arm was gradually widened until it attained its present breadth--a
mile. The whole length of the island is nine miles; the breadth varies
materially. The entire area (so Pundit says) was, about eight hundred
years ago, densely packed with houses, some of them twenty stories
high: land (for some most unaccountable reason) being considered as
especially precious just in this vicinity. The disastrous earthquake,
however, of the year 2050, so totally uprooted and overwhelmed the
town (for it was almost too large to be called a village) that the
most indefatigable of our antiquarians have never yet been able to
obtain from the site any sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals
or inscriptions) wherewith to build up even the ghost of a theory
concerning the manners, customs, etc., etc., etc., of the aboriginal
inhabitants. Nearly all that we have hitherto known of them is that
they were a portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of savages infesting
the continent at its first discovery by Recorder Riker, a knight of
the Golden Fleece. They were by no means uncivilized, however, but
cultivated various arts and even sciences after a fashion of their
own. It it related of them that they were acute in many respects, but
were oddly afflicted with monomania for building what, in the ancient
Amriccan, was denominated "churches"--a kind of pagoda instituted
for the worship of two idols that went by the names of Wealth and
Fashion. In the end, it is said, the island became, nine-tenths of it,
church. The women, too, it appears, were oddly deformed by a natural
protuberance of the region just below the small of the back--although,
most unaccountably, this deformity was looked upon altogether in the
light of a beauty. One or two pictures of these singular women have, in
fact, been miraculously preserved. They looked very odd, _very_--like
something between a turkeycock and a dromedary.
Well, these few details are nearly all that have descended to us
respecting the ancient Knickerbockers. It seems, however, that while
digging in the center of the emperor's garden (which, you know,
covers the whole island), some of the workmen unearthed a cubical and
evidently chiseled block of granite, weighing several hundred pounds.
It was in good preservation, having received, apparently, little injury
from the convulsion which entombed it. On one of its surfaces was a
marble slab with (only think of it!) _an inscription_--_a legible
inscription_. Pundit is in ecstasies. Upon detaching the slab, a cavity
appeared, containing a leaden box filled with various coins, a long
scroll of names, several documents which appear to resemble newspapers,
with other matters of intense interest to the antiquarian! There can be
no doubt that all these are genuine Amriccan relics belonging to the
tribe called Knickerbocker. The papers thrown on board our balloon
are filled with fac-similes of the coins, MSS., typography, etc., etc.
I copy for your amusement the Knickerbocker inscription on the marble
slab:
This Corner Stone of a Monument to the
Memory of
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
was laid with appropriate ceremonies on the
19th day of October, 1847,
the anniversary of the surrender of
Lord Cornwallis
to General Washington at Yorktown,
A. D. 1781,
under the auspices of the
Washington Monument Association of the
City of New York.
This, as I give it, is a verbatim translation done by Pundit himself,
so there _can_ be no mistake about it. From the few words thus
preserved, we gleam several important items of knowledge, not the least
interesting of which is the fact that a thousand years ago _actual_
monuments had fallen into disuse--as was all very proper--the people
contenting themselves, as we do now, with a mere indication of the
design to erect a monument at some future time; a cornerstone being
cautiously laid by itself "solitary and alone" (excuse me for quoting
the great Amriccan poet Benton!) as a guarantee of the magnanimous
_intention_. We ascertain, too, very distinctly, from this admirable
inscription, the how as well as the where and the what, of the great
surrender in question. As to the _where_, it was Yorktown (wherever
that was), and as to the _what_, it was General Cornwallis (no doubt
some wealthy dealer in corn). _He_ was surrendered. The inscription
commemorates the surrender of--what?--why, "of Lord Cornwallis." The
only question is what could the savages wish him surrendered for. But
when we remember that these savages were undoubtedly cannibals, we
are led to the conclusion that they intended him for sausage. As to
the _how_ of the surrender, no language can be more explicit. Lord
Cornwallis was surrendered (for sausage) "under the auspices of the
Washington Monument Association"--no doubt a charitable institution
for the depositing of cornerstones. But, Heaven bless me! what is the
matter? Ah, I see--the balloon has collapsed, and we shall have a
tumble into the sea. I have, therefore, only time enough to add that,
from a hasty inspection of the fac-similes of newspapers, etc., etc.,
I find that the great men in those days among the Amriccans, were one
John, a smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor.
Good-bye, until I see you again. Whether you ever get this letter or
not is point of little importance, as I write altogether for my own
amusement. I shall cork the MS. up in a bottle, however, and throw it
into the sea.
Yours everlastingly,
PUNDITA.
--Edgar Allan Poe.
=Busyong's Trip to Jupiter=
Singular indeed among such ordinary men as we come across in our
everyday life Busyong might have seemed to us, both on account of his
features and of his attitude. He had wrinkles on his face which showed
that he had smiled and laughed much in his life; but his expression
was rather sardonic. He was a lively man, with a keen sense of what
is serious and what is ludicrous. Owing to this peculiarity Busyong
did not have many acquaintances among his tribe. However, he did not
feel lonesome or forlorn; often he amused himself in observing in his
people what he regarded as the overstepping of limits of propriety
and decency. He was not a man of vast knowledge, yet he had exquisite
common sense, which his few good friends admired.
Busyong entertained the idea of visiting the brightest planet, next
to Venus, of our solar system, namely, Jupiter; for he had read in a
certain book that Jupiter is inhabited, and the inhabitants can float
in the air because of their lightness. "This is something to me," he
said to himself. "Let us see what sort of people they are." So, led by
curiosity, Busyong after several attempts succeeded in finding means
by which he could go to Jupiter. He made a large balloon-like machine.
When Busyong had prepared everything necessary for this aerial voyage,
he began ascending from the top of Mt. Makiling at sunset. Nobody
witnessed him, because he did not make the purpose of his voyage known
to anybody. While he was ascending, he was delighted to observe the
earth growing smaller and smaller. The machine of the balloon was so
powerful that by turning a sort of button to its maximum capacity, as
Busyong did, he had the balloon soon piercing the clouds and like a
large condor soaring in the sky. When Busyong found out that he could
hardly breathe, he accelerated the speed of the balloon, so that in a
few moments he found himself in a different atmosphere where he could
breathe as well as before when he was yet near the earth. He was now
near Jupiter, whose brightness had served him as a lighthouse. He had
puffed out some of the vapor in the balloon, so that he might go down
nearer the planet. It being very early in the morning, he resolved to
take a rest; for he was tired of seeing nothing but stars and sky.
Presently, after about two hours, when the sun was just appearing from
behind the planet, Busyong woke up. He was glad; for he had dreamt that
he should see things which he had never seen before. After rubbing his
eyes with a handkerchief, he began to look around him. With the aid
of a telescope which he had brought he saw to his surprise large and
small bodies of land and water, which he took for continents, islands,
oceans, and lakes, respectively. Descending lower, he perceived
mountains, some of which were hidden by clouds, and others that were
unhidden, covered with trees. When he had directed his telescope
towards a valley, he noticed to his happiness a poor dwelling of some
human being. It was a hut with a roof similar to _nipa_ and with a
wooden ladder, near which was a cock. The sight of this dwelling gave
rise in Busyong mind to a train of ideas regarding the inhabitants of
the planet. So far it certainly looked like the country he had come
from: it might still be the Philippines. Busyong decided to alight
from his balloon on the top of a mountain near the hut. After he had
eaten his breakfast, he began to descend the mountain. It was not long
before he reached its foot through devious paths.
When he appeared before the entrance of the cottage and looked in, he
found a haggard middle-aged man, a sluttish old woman, and a wan-faced
boy, all of a swarthy appearance, sitting on the floor. They were
eating their frugal breakfast, which consisted of fried rice, coffee,
and dried fish. They did not use spoons, but their plain dirty-nailed
fingers. Busyong was surprised to find so great a similarity both in
the form of the house and in the manner of eating between these people
and those of his own country. Presently upon his saluting these inmates
with a _magandang araw po_, a small lean red dog began to bark at him.
The man, who was sitting in a squatting posture, turned his face and
remained for a few moments staring at Busyong with a little fright
mingled with wonder. Unfortunately when the old woman had cleaned her
shriveled hands unconsciously with a piece of brown ragged cloth, the
dog vomited on it without being noticed by any one of the family. Then
with her disheveled hair she stood up to receive Busyong, who was a
stranger to them; but the man prevented her from doing so. The man did
not appear to understand Busyong, who again bade him a good morning,
and so Busyong resolved to talk to him like a mute by signs. Having
noticed a large farm not very far from the hut, Busyong beckoned the
man, and made signs, asking him who the owner of the field was. The
man, who seemed to be a farm laborer, pointed to him the way to the
rich farmer's house. Busyong soon left him still staring with a vacant
countenance and wide-open mouth.
Busyong had noticed the folly of the old woman when she wiped her hands
with the dirty piece of cloth. It was not long after he had started to
go that he heard such loud retchings from the hut that he stopped and
turned around. He returned anxious to see what the matter was. When
he appeared before the entrance of the cottage, he saw the peasant,
who kept asking his wife in a compassionate manner what was the matter
with her. The man received no answer; for his wife kept on retching so
constantly that she thought that, like a sea cucumber, she had everted
all her alimentary canal or was going to do so. The poor husband was
so perplexed that he did not know what to do with her; sometimes he
patted her breast; sometimes he rubbed her back as if he were stroking
the _bulik sa pula_ (a cock spotted with white and red, but mostly with
red) that was near the ladder of the hut.
Presently, when the peasant saw Busyong observing his action, he drew
near to him and said something in a tremulous voice. Busyong explained
to the man by motions that the cause of all the trouble was perhaps the
vomit of the dog on the piece of cloth. The man hurried to convince
himself; and in his great anger he would have killed the poor animal,
were it not for Busyong, who stopped him. The husband and the wife,
whose convulsions had calmed somewhat, were angry with the dog, and
even their little boy, pouting with smeared face, showed his anger by
squalling at and whipping the animal; but at the same time the man
and the old woman were afraid that Busyong might call an ambulance to
take them all to a hospital or police station. In the midst of this
excitement Busyong availed himself of the opportunity to "strike when
the emotional iron was hot." He exhorted the family concerning the
custom of eating with fingers in such a philippic as might have had
a very deep impression on the minds of all his hearers if they had
understood him.
Busyong then departed, and he said to himself nodding, "Aha, I remember
my grandmother often said to me when she would tell me amusing stories
that in the vineyard of the Lord there are all sorts of things. I see
now that her statement seems to hold good even in this new planet."
When he had walked some distance, he looked around him, and took his
handkerchief out of a pocket of his coat and with it wiped off the
perspiration on his face. Feeling himself warm, he whiffed and said,
"I see, this country appears to have the same warm climate as that of
my native land. I wonder if the people here are all brown like the
farm-laborer and me." After a few minutes' walk he saw a large town at
a short distance, and among the small houses he perceived a steep roof
which he took for the steeple of the church of the village. The first
house he came to in the town was that of the rich farmer. It was a
two-storied square wooden structure; in front of it was a small garden,
and behind a small orchard. Busyong knocked at the door, and in a few
moments a servant appeared.
"Is the farmer in?" Busyong inquired, hardly expecting to be
understood. He knew no language but his own, and had to try to get
along with that.
"Yes, sir," answered the servant, whose curiosity was awakened by the
rather unfamiliar appearance of Busyong, but who seemed to wonder not
at all at his speech.
"Tell him, please, that a stranger desires to speak with him."
Without uttering a word, the servant went to comply with Busyong's
request.
"Yes, invite him to come in," said the old farmer to his servant. "And,
Andoy," he added, "tell Islao to come here to try these new sound
assorters."
"Yes, sir," was the boy's reply as he went down the stairs.
The servant first led Busyong before the farmer.
"Here, Islao, see if you can put these new filterers into your ears
without discomfort. I've improved on the others considerably, I think,"
said the old man as Busyong stepped into the room.
"Good morning, sir," said Busyong very respectfully, taking the
proffered package and bowing, though he understood not a word.
"Oh! excuse me, sir, excuse me! I mistook you for my son," exclaimed
the farmer, but seeing that Busyong was confused he motioned him
to sit down, and then drawing from his ears a tiny pair of soft
elastic-looking objects, put them back and motioned Busyong to
imitate him by applying what was in the package to his own ears.
Being naturally very curious and desiring above all things to make a
good impression on the inhabitants of this strange planet, Busyong
obeyed. But what was his astonishment to find that he now began to
understand perfectly what the old man was saying, whom before he had
not comprehended in the least, although the old fellow was already well
launched on a long exposition. Busyong's understanding began to work
at about this point: "You see, I have greatly improved them. There
has always hitherto been a sort of buzzing accompaniment. You don't
feel any, do you? You understand me perfectly, don't you? I told my
son Islao the difficulty could be overcome, But, you see, people have
been so accustomed to getting along with the noise that they stopped
being impatient at it. But I said since we had all the language sounds
assorted and distributed to their proper concept centers, there was
no reason why we should not be able to conduct outward the so-to-say
'mechanical' sounds. You understand me perfectly, don't you, sir, and
with no buzzing. Is not that so?"
"Yes, truly; but much to my astonishment," replied Busyong, "for a
moment ago I did not understand you, and now I do. On our planet I
have heard of light or ray filterers that would distribute colors on
a sensitive camera plate, but this is the first time I've heard of a
language filterer, though I see that it works perfectly. But, sir, I
remember that you were very busy when I came in, and now I am bothering
you."
"Oh, no, sir; keep your seat, keep your seat, please. This is the time
when I attend to visitors; from nine to twelve o'clock in the morning
and from three to five o'clock in the afternoon; and even at any other
time I am disposed to receive a guest, especially a stranger."
"Thank you, sir. My intrusion is perhaps justifiable by my being a
stranger to this planet."
"A stranger to this planet! Will you explain yourself? Otherwise I
shall think you are some ghost."
"Why, yes, I'll make myself clear as I can. I arrived here just this
morning from the planet Earth. Near the foot of that neighboring
mountain I saw the hut of your farm laborer, who showed me your house."
"But how did you come to this planet!"
"By a special balloon which I made myself."
"Oh, yes, I remember now; I remember to have read--I do not recollect
the name of the book--that such an aerial voyage from the earth to this
planet or _vice versa_ is possible. Oh, please, stay here with us; we
shall be very glad to have you remain with us."
"Thank you, sir; yes, I'll stay here. Especially if you will explain
to me this wonderful device by means of which I can understand your
language and you mine. Now on Earth we have to go to the labor of
memorizing a whole dictionary if we wish to converse with a fellow
mortal of another nationality."
"Oh, yes; that's very bad. A great loss of time and energy. A long
while ago, after we had perfected mechanical talking machines, somebody
realized that we were wasting a great amount of time conversing with
machinery when we couldn't understand our fellow men. So he set
himself to thinking and he soon saw that the difference in languages
is not a difference in ideas, but in sounds. So if he could just
filter the sound waves as they entered the cranium, he could trust
to consciousness to do the rest; for it always responds to phenomena
after its own nature, not after the nature of the phenomena that it
takes up--as the philosophers had long before proved. But I must stop
talking. I want to hear about the Earth. I dare say your planet is much
wiser than ours. Ours is very foolish in many ways, as you will see
before long." And the farmer got up to order one of his servants to
prepare a room for Busyong.
The family of the old man, consisting of a wife and a grown-up son and
a young daughter, then spent most of the day in eagerly questioning
Busyong about the earth and its inhabitants. Night came on and the
farmer remained alone conversing with Busyong beside a window until
very late. They were beginning to feel sleepy when a confused noise of
stringed instruments was heard from a neighboring house. Busyong soon
lost his drowsiness.
"What is that music for? What does it mean at such at an hour as this?
'Tis one o'clock," Busyong said.
"These people are courting a lady, and their cackling is intended to
win the love of the maiden--nay, I should say to annoy and disturb the
neighbors from their rest; for that's really what they do," replied
the old man with indignation. "This custom," he added, "although not
widespread in this country, is yet after all very troublesome and
indeed very ridiculous also."
"Now, I wonder if these people know the woman for whom they are
offering their sacrifices."
"That is another folly about them. That is often the case; these people
work hard making a loud noise with their wooden rattles in order to
attain their purpose, but they don't have the slightest idea of the
real character of the woman for whom they die deliriously; nay, they
don't know even how she looks; whether she is ugly and haggard or
whether she is like Venus, charming with beauty."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, O Folly! But let us not fret ourselves at the errors
of mankind, for they seem to be natural both to this planet and to that
of mine. Hark! who is that singing now so affectedly?"
"That is the head of the band, the Faust. Listen to his fastidious
voice and the _balder-dash_ with which it is accompanied."
Silence reigned for a time between the old man and Busyong. Upon
hearing no longer the music which had occasioned his remarks the old
man said, "Thanks to Dios, I think they are gone. Now let us go to bed.
You must be very tired, Busyong. Good night."
"Good night," replied Busyong.
Next morning the old man told his son Islao to take a walk with
Busyong around the town. In this exploration, for such did it appear
rather than just a mere promenade to Busyong, who was a stranger to
the planet, Islao led his friend directly to his large farm of rice.
Then they went to the busiest part of the large town, where Busyong
was delighted to observe the different kinds of stores--dry goods
and hardware. When they came to a very lively street, Busyong found
occasion to laugh in his characteristic sarcastic manner at the
tremendous numbers of different kinds of signboards, some hanging flat
against the doors of the stores, and some sticking out a long distance
or even stretching across the entire width of the street. The size of
the signboards ranged from the smallest of those which professional men
use to the very large ones with which the managers of theaters announce
a dramatic performance.
While the two friends were walking slowly along the street, for there
were many people out, their attention was very curiously attracted by
the appearance of a scrawny young man, who came mincing by them. They
stopped beside a telegraph post, while the young man went on, meeting a
friend at a short distance, to whom he said, "Hallo, Tetoy (Aniceto).
_Donde vamus you?_" "Hallo, Balatong," replied the friend. The rest of
their conversation went on in a low tone in their peculiar dialect.
Busyong and Islao overheard only their slipshod greetings.
"Islao, who is that man--that one who wears the hat with a wide ribbon
whose colors are light blue and green, and black with white stripes
resembling the skin of a skunk?" inquired Busyong.
"What man? Excuse me, I was looking at somebody else," said Islao. "Do
you mean that one who wears a bright red, yellow, and green----"
"Crumpled small fish net around his collar I should say; yes, exactly,
that one. Who's he?"
"Ha, ha, ha; oh, yes. He is one of the suitors of the girl who lives in
front of our house. Balatong, I think is his name."
"Aha, the one who cackled last night, as your father said?"
"I don't know," laughing.
"And that other one with cross eyes, whose trousers are folded up five
times, I think, showing his stockings, which are like the tidies of a
chair back--who's he?"
"Who? That one who wears broad ribbon-like strings on his shoes?
I don't know him. Don't you think he looks like a woman--I mean
both of them--with their way of dressing? Aha, one of them--not the
cross-eyed--has powder on his face, I think."
"Oh, yes, yes. You know, in my native country in the planet Earth only
women are fond of and use such gaudy colors and such kind of stockings;
and, indeed, they are only proper for women. But we used to----"
"But that's not all here; the worst is when these people use
stockings--as I have had occasion to notice many times--stockings
which are elaborately ornamented with the queerest fantastic designs;
such as a burning dainty heart, a dove carrying a bunch of _dama de
noche_ with its toes--rather, a falcon or vulture I should say--great
goodness!--make the dove carry a flower in its claws!"
"Aha, is that so? Why, thanks to goodness, in my native land no such
queer people are to be found now, except very, very few. There used to
be--but do you know what we call them in pure, simple Tagalog? We call
them _binabae_; that is a bit worse than the English term 'sissy.' But
from your own experience, tell me, Islao, what living being other than
man have you observed making such a liberal display of gaudy colors in
that most affected manner?"
"Why, among plants you mean? Like the parasite with beautifully colored
flowers hanging on that window?"
"Well, not so low in the organic world as that," laughing heartily. "I
don't mean a plant; I mean----"
"Oh, I get your point. You mean among birds like the gayly colored
rooster of that man who is now hawking in that store, don't you?"
"Exactly, upon my wish, you have slipped from your tongue what I was
precisely going to say."
"And I think you know why the birds, most especially the males, do have
such bright colors."
"Why, yes; I suppose those smart young men have the same view in mind
as that of the male birds, and meditate and dream that it is 'not
proper at all for a man to be alone,' as, thinking of Priscilla, Miles
Standish would say."
"Possibly, possibly," laughing. Islao did not understand the allusion,
but he let it pass.
"Now be careful; don't speak loud," whispered Busyong.
Presently the two friends who were the object of Busyong and Islao's
rather severe remarks shuffled towards Busyong and Islao, stopping near
the telegraph post beside them. The two chums were going to separate
when one of them, the cross-eyed, jabbered, "Oh, you _teni espijo_, ah?
_Porque? You ajos malo, eh?_"
A sudden insuppressible peal of laughter was heard from Busyong and
Islao, who soon tried to act as if they did not hear the blunder.
"_Cosa ajos?_ Am no cook as you," said the other grinning over his
glasses a little more easily than the first one.
"_Cosa esti?_" asked the cross-eyed one, pointing to his eyes with his
dirty-nailed finger.
"T'at is call 'esquinting eyes.'"
"Ah, yes. _Porque got espijo_ you, esquinting ais?"
"Oh, you don' know its value; t'at is to add weight," erecting his body
and raising his low chest, but forgetting that the other had called him
cross-eyed.
Their gabble would have lasted longer if it were not for two ladies who
passed between them. Balatong, as the young man who wore spectacles
was called, started to mince along the busy street, scowling at Busyong
and at Islao, who were suppressing their laughter as best they could,
as he strutted before them. In a few moments Busyong and Islao began
also to move about, and soon kept pace with two bald-headed men who
happened to be walking the street in the same direction as theirs.
Presently, one of the old men observed Balatong, who was peering at
and caressing with a handkerchief one of his tapped shoes which had
been stepped upon by a "brat," to use his own expression, as he had
struggled along, distorting carefully his body to force a way through
an idle crowd. Then in a sarcastic but indignant manner and forgetting
what his companion was speaking about, the man said, "Oh, look at that
Enigo. See how the lower edge of his long cloak flaps like a sail
battered by the wind!"
"No," said the other old man, "that is not a cloak, but a plain coat."
"Well, I thought it was a cloak like those used by the people in the
neighboring continent in time of cold weather. That's the reason why
I said he was Enigo, for he uses a cloak now when it is warm, and I
suppose he would use light clothes when it is cold."
"That is the fashion they say--and the latest one, too."
"Go to, the fashion!"
Meanwhile Busyong nudged Islao and whispered close to his ear, "Did you
hear what these old men were talking about?"
Islao nodded, smiling.
Then the two old men climbed into a vehicle very much like a
_carretela_, and drove away. Busyong and Islao went into a saloon of
fresh drinks and asked for a refreshment similar to milkshake.
"The owner of this saloon is a woman, according to the signboard at the
door," remarked Busyong.
"Yes," said Islao, smiling; "I am sorry to say."
In the meantime Balatong stopped in front of a dry goods store on the
opposite sidewalk and began to ruminate on his image as reflected in
the glass of a counter, and at times twitched his scrawny body. Busyong
and Islao were observing him. After a while a clerk of the store opened
the door of the counter and turned a button on the back of a puppet,
which hereto had been unnoticed by Balatong. Soon the dainty hands of
the puppet, which were raised in front of its small breast, began to
move back and forth, especially the delicate fingers, as if the whole
figure had come to life. Balatong looked at the doll rather pleased
at first. But when he noticed the remarkable similarity of all the
clothes of the puppet with his own clothes, he began to be aroused and
to feel offended, insomuch that he could not help going into the store
to complain. He approached the man who had made the hands of the puppet
move and called him to come outside. The man, who thought that he was
going to show something on the counter which he wished to buy, followed
him obediently. They stuttered in their native tongue, which ran thus
in English:
"I think that that puppet is intended to offend me, because
it is dressed exactly in the same way as I am; that is,
with the same clothes, necktie, and hat, which I bought
from this very store some time ago. However, you have
willfully--made--the--pup--pup--pup--pet--move its hands in such a way
as that--pointing to himself and then to me--that is as much as to say
I am a puppet," said Balatong, who began to be angry with the man, who
was laughing candidly.
The man went back into the store, shrugging his square shoulders and
paying no attention to the complaint of Balatong. Balatong insisted,
squalling at the door in an aggressive attitude, "Aren't you goin' to
take 'way the puppet from t'at counter?"
"_E ko visa_," muttered the clerk in his native dialect as he was
dusting the chairs in the store.
Presently Busyong and Islao, who all this while had been mute
spectators of the fray, came out of the saloon with a view to settle
the dispute peacefully and justly, for, after all, they pitied
Balatong, who, they thought, had got now into an inextricable strait.
Islao, who could speak a little the peculiar dialect of the clerk,
addressed the clerk confidentially in his own tongue, asking him what
was the matter. The man answered in the same language which Busyong
understood thus: "Why, this friend orders me to remove the puppet from
that counter; for he says that he is not pleased with it."
"Well, well, is that the whole cause of this fuss?" asked Busyong,
smiling.
Meanwhile Balatong was setting forth to Islao earnestly all his
complaint with many, many studied complicated movements of both hands
and body. Islao waited for him to finish stuttering, for he wanted to
talk with him. Then, suspecting from the tone of his voice a smack
of Kamkangan blood in Balatong, Islao thought it best to feign
comradeship for the sake of persuading him to behave in a more manly
way. So, when Balatong had finished jabbering, Islao addressed him in
the most friendly manner, saying laconically, "_Abe, e ka makisankut
ketang é mo balú._[2]"
Upon hearing these words, which he at first pretended not to have
understood, Balatong suddenly became excited and perplexed. He gnashed
his widely separated teeth, clenched his fists, and looked up into
Islao's face with fiery eyes, saying, "Why d'you insult an' curse me?
If I ha-have done wron', show me how; an' if not, _qua de causa_?"
Busyong and Islao smiled pityingly and ironically instead of being
offended. On the other hand, bursting into a peal of laughter, the
juvenile clerk said jocosely in a sort of Kamkanga dialect the
following: "Aroo, our _abe_ is an evangelical man--fine!--nay, he is a
priest. How was it?--_qua re cosa_--ha, ha, ha."
Balatong became the more angry with the clerk inasmuch as he saw that
the clerk was poking fun at him.
"I don' want to be the laughing stock of anybody," said Balatong
indignantly.
"Don't be touchy, _abe_," said the clerk in his own dialect.
All of a sudden the exasperated Balatong seized a big stone from the
street and dashed it against the glass of the counter, which broke into
a thousand pieces. The people of the store and some passers-by were
alarmed at the violent action of Balatong. Presently a robust old man
came hurriedly shuffling with his wooden shoes towards Balatong, and
would have strangled him were it not for the opportune presence of a
fat man who was one of the idle crowd that had been gathering at the
door of the shop.
The fat man, who was carrying under his arm two large scissors in
a folded white coat, interposed himself between the aggressor and
Balatong, saying in dialect, "For the sake of our beloved country!
Don't behave that way, fellow patriot! Don't, especially with one of
the same skin as yours and in whose veins runs the same pure blood
as that of yours. For the noblest ideal of our _Talukap_[3] party,
countrymen, bethink yourselves!"
"Surely," replied the old man, whose anger was appeased by the slushy
encomium of the intruder. "But this fellow here does not seem to be
like a true native of this country, for look at what he has done with
that counter, simply because he says he isn't pleased with that puppet
there."
"Well, well," said in a friendly manner the intruder as he faced
Balatong, "why do you behave that way?"
"Sherup! don' interfere with me; you had better mind only your
incisors," retorted Balatong, imitating with his bony fingers the
movement of the scissors he meant.
Busyong and Islao suddenly burst into prolonged laughter, while the
rest remained silent drivelling with wide-opened mouths as they beheld
the two men laughing heartily.