THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF PETER WILKINS.
By Robert Paltock
With A Preface By A. H. Bullen
Vol. II (of II)
London: Reeves & Turner, 196 Strand.
1884.
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LIFE and ADVENTURES OF PETER WILKINS
A Cornish Man
Relating particularly,
His Shipwreck near the South Pole; his wonderful Passage thro' a
subterraneous Cavern into a kind of new World; his there meeting with a
Gawry or flying woman, whose Life he preserv'd, and afterwards married
her; his extraordinary Conveyance to the Country of Glums and Gawrys, or
Men and Women that fly. Likewise a Description of this strange Country,
with the Laws, Customs, and Manners of its Inhabitants, and the Author's
remarkable Transactions among them.
Taken from his own Mouth, in his Passage to England from off Cape Horn
in America, in the ship Hector.
With an INTRODUCTION, giving an Account of the surprizing Manner of his
coming on board that Vessel, and his Death on his landing at Plymouth in
the Year 1739.
Illustrated with several Cuts, clearly and distinctly representing the
Structure and Mechanism of the Wings of the Glums and Gawrys, and the
Manner in which they use them either to swim or fly.
By R. S. a Passenger in the Hector.
In Two Volumes.
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CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPT I.
A discourse on light--Quangrollart explains the word crashee--Believes a
fowl is a fruit--Gives a further account of Youwarkee's reception by
her father, and by the king--Tommy and Hallycarnie provided for at
court--Youwarkee and her father visit the colambs, and are visited--Her
return put off till next winter, when her father is to come with her
CHAPT II.
The author shows Quangrollart and Rosig his poultry--They are surprised
at them--He takes them a-fishing--They wonder at his cart, and at his
shooting a fowl--They are terribly frightened at the firing of the
gun--He pacifies them
CHAPT III.
Peter prepares for his father's reception--Arguments about his
beard--Expects his wife--Reflections on her not coming--Sees a messenger
on the rock--Has notice of Pendlehamby's arrival and prepares a treat
CHAPT IV.
Peter settles the formality, of his father's reception--Description
of their march and alighting--Receives his father--Conducts him to
the grotto--Offers to beg pardon for his marriage--Is prevented by
Pendlehamby--Youwarkee not known in her English habit--Quarters the
officers in the tent
CHAPT V.
The manner of their dinner--Believe the fish and fowl to be
fruits--Hears his brother and the colambs are coming--Account of their
lying--Peter's reflections on the want of the graundee--They view
the arkoe--Servants harder to please than their masters--Reasons for
different dresses the same day
CHAPT VI.
Quangrollart arrives with the colambs--Straitened for
accommodation--Remove to the tent--Youwarkee not known--Peter relates
part of his travels--Dispute about the beast-fish skins
CHAPT VII.
Go a-fishing--Catch a beast-fish--Afraid of the gun--How Peter altered
his net--A fish-dinner for the guards--Method of dressing and eating it
CHAPT VIII.
A shooting proposed--All afraid of the gun but one private guard--His
behaviour--Pendlehamby at Peter's request makes him a general--Peter's
discourse thereon--Remainder of his story--The colambs return
CHAPT IX.
Peter finds his stores low--Sends Youwarkee to the ship--Receives an
invitation to Georigetti's court
CHAPT X.
Nasgig comes with a guard to fetch Peter--Long debate about his
going--Nasgig's uneasiness at Peter's refusal--Relates a prediction to
him, and proceedings thereon at Georigetti's court--Peter consents to
go--Prepares a machine for that purpose
CHAPT XI.
Peter's speech to the soldiery--Offers them freedom--His journey--Is met
by the king--The king sent back, and why--Peter alights in the king's
garden--His audience--Description of his supper and bed
CHAPT XII.
The king's apartments described--Peter is introduced to the king--A
moucheratt called--His discourse with the king about religion
CHAPT XIII.
Peter's reflections on what he was to perform--Settles the method
of it--His advice to his son and daughter--Globe-lights living
creatures--Takes Maleck into his service--Nasgig discovers to Peter a
plot in court--Revolt of Gauingrunt
CHAPT XIV.
Hold a moucheratt--Speeches of ragans and colambs--Peter settles
religion--Informs the king of a plot--Sends Nasgig to the ship for
cannon
CHAPT XV.
The king hears Barbarsa and Yaccombourse discourse on the plot--They
are impeached by Peter at a moucheratt--Condemned and executed--Nicor
submits, and is released
CHAPT XVI.
Nasgig returns with the cannon--Peter informs him of the
execution--Appoints him a guard--Settles the order of his march against
Harlokin--Combat between Nasgig and the rebel general--The battle--Peter
returning with Harlokin's head is met by a sweecoan--A public
festival--Slavery abolished
CHAPT XVII.
A visitation of the revolted provinces proposed by Peter--His new name
of the country received--Religion settled in the west--Slavery abolished
there--Lasmeel returns with Peter--Peter teaches him letters--The king
surprised at written correspondence--Peter describes the make of a beast
to the king
CHAPT XVIII.
Peter sends for his family--A rising of former slaves on that
account--Takes a view of the city--A description of it, and of the
country--Hot and cold springs
CHAPT XIX.
Peter sends for his family--Pendlehamby gives a fabulous account of the
peopling of that country--Their policy and government--Peter's
discourse on trade--You-warkee arrives--Invites the king and nobles to a
treat--Sends to Graundevolet for fowls
CHAPT XX.
Peter goes to his father's--Traverses the Black Mountain--Takes a
flight to Mount Alkoe--Gains the miners--Overcomes the governor's
troops--Proclaims Georigetti king--Seizes the governor--Returns him the
government--Peter makes laws with the consent of the people, and returns
to Brandleguarp with deputies
CHAPT XXI.
Peter arrives with the deputies--Presents them to the king--They
return--A colony agreed to be sent thither--Nasgig made governor--Manner
of choosing the colony--A flight-race, and the intent of it--Walsi wins
the prize and is found to be a gawry
CHAPT XXII.
The race reconciles the two kingdoms--The colony proceeds--Builds a
city--Peter views the country at a distance--Hears of a prophecy of
the king of Norbon's daughter Stygee--Goes thither--Kills the king's
nephew--Fulfils the prophecy by engaging Stygee to Georigetii--Returns
CHAPT XXIII.
A discourse on marriage between Peter and Georigetii--Peter proposes
Stygee--The king accepts it--Relates his transactions at Norbon--The
marriage is consummated--Account of the marriage ceremony--Peter goes
to Norbon--Opens a free trade to Mount Alkoe--Gets traders to settle at
Norbon--Convoys cattle to Mount Alkoe
CHAPT XXIV.
Peter looking over his books finds he has got a Latin Bible--
Sets about a translation--Teaches some of the ragans letters--Sets up
a paper manufacture--Makes the ragans read the Bible--The ragans teach
others to read and write--A fair kept at the Black Mountain--Peter's
reflections on the Swangeantines
CHAPT XXV.
Peter's children provided for--Youwarkee's death--How the king and
queen spent their time--Peter grows melancholy--Wants to get to
England--Contrives means--Is taken up at sea
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A GENUINE ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF PETER WILKINS.
CHAPTER I.
_A discourse on light--Quangrollart explains the word crashee--Believes
a fowl is a fruit--Gives a further account of Youwarkeds reception by
her father, and by the king--Tommy and Hallycarnie provided for at
court--Youwarkee and her father visit the colambs, and are visited--Her
return put off till next winter, when her father is to come with her._
THE next day I prepared again of the best of everything for my new
guests. I killed three fowls, and ordered Pedro (who was as good a cook
almost as myself) to get them ready for boiling, whilst we took a walk
to the lake. Though we went out in the clearest part of the morning, I
heard no complaint of the light. I took the liberty to ask my brother if
the light did not offend him; for I told him my wife could not bear so
much without spectacles.--"What is that spectacle?" says he.--"Something
I made your sister," says I, "to prevent the inconvenience of too much
light upon her eyes."--He said the light was scarce at all troublesome
to him, for he had been in much greater, and was used to it; and that
the glumms, who travelled much abroad, could bear more light than the
gawrys, who stayed much at home: these stirring but little out unless
in large companies, and that of one another, and very rarely admitted
glumms amongst them before marriage. For his own part, he said, he
had an office at Crashdoorpt, * which, though he executed chiefly by
a deputy, obliged him to reside there sometimes for a long season
together; that being a more luminous country than Arndrumnstake, light
was become familiar to him; for it was very observable that some who
had been used to it young, though they might in time overcome it, yet at
first it was very uneasy.
* The country of the Slits.
I was upon the tenter whilst he spoke, lest, before he had done, a
question I had a thousand times thought to have asked my wife, should
slip out of my head, as it had so often done before, and was what I had
for years desired to be resolved in; viz., what the meaning of the word
slit was, when applied to a man. So, on his pausing, I said that his
mention of Crashdoorpt reminded me of inquiring what crashee meant, when
applied to a glumm or gawry. "It would be no hard task," he said, "to
satisfy me in respect of that, as I already understood the nature of the
graundee;" whereupon he went on thus: "Slitting is the only punishment
we use to incorrigible criminals: our method is, where any one has
committed a very heinous offence, or, which is the same thing, has
multiplied the acts of offence, he has a long string tied round his
neck, in the manner of a cravat; and then two glumms, one at each
end, take it in their hands, standing side by side with him; two more
standing before him, and two behind him; all which in that manner take
flight, so that the string keeps the criminal in the middle of them:
thus they conduct him to Crashdoorpt, which lies farther on the other
side of Arndrumnstake than this arkoe does on this side of it, and is
just such an arkoe as ours, but much bigger within the rocks. When they
come to the covett they alight, where my deputy immediately orders
the malefactor to be slit, so that he can never more return to
Normnbdsgrsutt, or indeed by any means get out of that arkoe, but must
end his days there. The method of slitting is thus: The criminal is laid
on his back with his graundee open, and after a recapitulation of his
crimes, and his condemnation, the officer with a sharp stone slits the
gume * between each of the filuses ** of the graundee, so that he can
never fly more. But what is still worse to new-comers, if they are not
very young, is the light of the place, which is so strong that it is
some years before they can overcome it, if ever they do."
This discourse gave me a great pleasure; thereupon I repeated the
dialogue that had passed between me and Youwarkee about my being slit,
and how we had held an argument a long time, without being able to come
at one another's meaning. "But pray, brother," says I, "how comes that
light country to agree so well with you?"--"Why," says he, "the colambat
*** of Crashdoorpt is reckoned one of the most honourable employments
in the state, by reason of the hazard of it, and the person accepting it
must be young: it was, by my father's interest at court, given to me at
nine years of age; my friend Rosig has followed my fortune in it ever
since, being much about my age, and has a post under me there: in short,
by being obliged to be so much there, and from so tender an age too, I
have pretty well inured myself to any light."
* The membrane.
** Ribs.
*** Government.
By this time we had got home again to dinner, which Pedro had set out
as elegantly as my country could afford, consisting of pickles and
preserves, as usual, a dish of hard eggs, and boiled fowls with spinage.
My guests, as I expected, stared at the fowls, but never offered to
touch them, or seemed in the least inclined to do so. I was afraid they
would be cold, and begged them to let me help them. I put a wing on each
of their plates, and a leg on my own; but perceiving they waited to see
how I managed it, I stuck in my fork, cut off a slice, dipped it in the
salt, and put it in my mouth. Just as I did they did, and appeared very
well pleased with the taste. "I never in my life," says Rosig, "saw a
crullmott*of this shape before;" and laid hold of a leg (taking it for
a stick I had thrust in, as he told me afterwards), intending to pull
it out; but finding it grew there, "Mr. Peter," says he, "you have the
oddest-shaped crullmotts that ever I saw; pray what part of the woods do
they grow in?"--"Grow in?" says I.--"Aye," says he, "I mean whether your
crullmott-trees are like ours or not?"--"Why," says I, "these fowls
are about my yard and the wood too."--"What!" says he, "is it a running
plant like a bott?" **--"No, no," says I, "a bird that I keep tame about
my house; and these (showing him the eggs) are the eggs of these birds,
and the birds grow from them."--"Pr'ythee," says Quangrollart, "never
let's inquire what they are till we have dined; for my brother Peter
will give us nothing we need be afraid of."
* A fruit like a melon.
** A gourd.
It growing into the night by that time we rose from table, I set a bowl
of punch before them, made with my treacle and sour ram's-horn juice,
which they pulled off plentifully. After some bumpers had gone round,
I desired my brother to proceed where he left off, in the account of my
wife's reception with her father.
"When my father," says he, "had recovered himself by some hours' repose,
the first thing he did was to order my sister Youwarkee to be called;
who, coming into his presence, he took her from her knees, kissed her,
and ordered all to depart but myself and Hallycarnie. Then bidding us
sit down, says he to your wife, 'Daughter, your appearance, whom I have
so long lamented as dead, has given me the truest cordial I could have
received, and I hope will add both to my health and years. I have heard
you suspect my anger for some part of your past conduct (for he had
hinted so to her sister and me), which you justly enough imagined may
be censured; but, my dear life, I am this day, what I did not expect any
more to be, a father of a new-born child; and not of one only, but of
many; and this day, I say, daughter, shall not be spent in sorrow and
excuses, or anything to interrupt our mutual felicity; neither will
I ever hereafter permit you to forget my forgiveness, or attempt to
palliate any of your proceedings; for know, child, that a benevolence
freely bestowed is better than twice its value obtained by petition: I,
therefore, as in presence of the Great Image, your brother and sister,
at this instant erase from my mind for ever what thoughts I may have had
prejudicial to the love I ever bore you, as I will have you to do all
such as may cloud the unreserved complacency you used to appear with
before me. And now, Quangrollart,' says he, 'let the guard be drawn out
before my covett, and let the whole country be entertained for seven
days; proclaim liberty to all persons confined; and let not the least
sorrow appear in any face throughout my colambat.'
"I retired immediately, and gave the necessary orders for the speedy
despatch of my father's commands, which indeed were performed to the
utmost; and nothing for seven days was to be heard through the whole
district of Arndrumnstake but joy and the name of Youwarkee.
"My father, so soon as he had despatched the above orders, sent for the
children before him, whom he kissed and blessed, frequently lifting up
his eyes in gratitude to the Great Image for the unexpected happiness he
enjoyed on that occasion; and then he ordered Youwarkee to let him know
what had befallen her in her absence, and where she lived, and with
whom.
"Youwarkee was setting out with some indirect excuses; but my father
absolutely forbid her, and charged her only to mention plain facts,
without flourishes. So she began with her swangean, and the accidental
fall she had, your taking her in after it, and saving her life. She told
him your continued kindness so wrought upon her, that she found herself
incapable of disesteeming you, but never showed her affection, till,
having examined every particular of your life, and finding you a worthy
man, she could not avoid becoming your wife; and she said the reasons
why she always declined being seen by her friends in their swangeans,
was for fear she should be forced from you, though she longed to see
us; and that at last she was to come by your consent, and that, had it
rested there only, she might have come much sooner, for that you would
often have had her show herself to her friends, when you heard them,
having strong desires yourself to be known to them.
"My father, upon hearing this, was so charmed with your tenderness and
affection to his daughter, that you already rival his own issue in
his esteem, and he is persuaded he can never do enough for you or your
children.
"The noise of Youwarkee's return, and my father's rejoicing, soon spread
over all Normnbdsgrsutt; and King Georigetti sent express to my father,
to command him to attend with your wife and children at Brandleguarp,
his capital. Thither accordingly we all went with a grand retinue, and
stayed twenty days. The king took great delight, as well as the ladies
of the court, to hear Youwarkee and her children talk English, and in
being informed of you and your way of life; and so fond was Yaccombourse
(who, though not the king's wife, is instead of one) of my nephew Tommy,
that, upon my father's return, she took him to herself, and assured
my sister he should continue near her person till he was qualified for
better preferment. The king's sister Jahamel would also have taken Patty
into her service; but she begged to be permitted to attend her mother
to Arndrumnstake; so Hallycarnie, her sister, who chose to continue with
Jahamel, was received in her room.
"Upon my father's return to Arndrumnstake, he found no less than fifteen
expresses from several colambs, desiring to rejoice with him on the
return of his daughter, with particular invitations to him and her to
spend some time with them. My father, though he hates more pomp than
is necessary to support dignity, could do no less than severally visit
them, with Youwarkee, attended by a grand retinue, spending more or less
days with each; hoping when that was over, he should have some little
time to spend in retirement with his daughter before her departure, who
now began to be uneasy for you, who, she said, would suffer the greatest
concern in her absence: but upon their return from those visits, at
about the end of four months' progress, they found themselves in as
little likelihood of retirement as the first day; for the inferior
colambs were continually posting away, one after another, to perform
their respects to my father, and all the inferior magistrates of smaller
districts sending to know when they might be permitted to do the same.
Poor Youwarkee, who saw no end of it, expressed her concern for you in
so lively a manner to my father, that finding he could by no means put
a stop to the goodwill of the people, and not bearing the thoughts of
You-warkee's departure till she had now received all their compliments,
he resolved to keep her with him till the next winter set in in these
parts, and then to accompany her himself to Graundevolet. In the
meanwhile, that you might not remain in an uneasy suspense what was
become of my sister, he ordered me to despatch messengers express to
inform you of the reasons of her stay; but I told him, if he pleased,
I would execute that office myself, with my friend Rosig, with which he
was very well pleased, and enjoined me to assure you of his affection,
and that he himself was debtor to you for the love and kindness you had
shown his daughter.
"Thus, brother," says Quangrollart, "I hope I have acquitted myself of
my charge to your satisfaction, and it only now remains that I return
you my acknowledgments for your hearty welcome to myself and friend;
which (with concern I speak it) I am afraid I shall not have an
opportunity to return at Arndrumnstake, the distance being so immensely
great and you not having the graundee. To-morrow morning my friend and I
will set out on our return home."
Quangrollart having done, I told him I could not but blush at the load
of undeserved praises he had laid on me; but as he had received his
notion of my merits from a wife too fond to let my character sink for
want of her support, it would be sufficient if himself could conceive
of, and also represent me at his return, in no worse a light than other
men; and though it gave me pain to think of losing my wife so long, yet
his account of her health and the company he assured me she would return
in, would doubly compensate my loss; and I begged of him, if it might
be with any convenience, he would let some messenger come the day before
her, to give me notice of their approach. As to their departure on the
morrow, I told them I could by no means think of that, as I had proposed
to catch them a dinner of fresh fish in the lake, and to show them my
boat, and how and where I came into this arkoe, believing, by what I had
observed, it would be no small novelty to them. So, having engaged them
one day more, we parted for that night to rest.
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