THE AUTHOR'S ARRIVAL IN QUAMA.
Meanwhile a large multitude of people collected around me from all
parts. They requested me to speak; but as I did not understand their
language I could not answer them. They repeated often the word Dank,
Dank, and supposing them to be Germans, I addressed them in this
language, then in Danish, and finally in Latin; but they signified to
me, by shaking their heads, that these languages were unknown to them. I
tried at last to declare myself in the subterranean tongues, namely, in
Nazaric and Martinianic; but it was in vain.
After having addressed each other, thus incomprehensibly for a long
time, I was carried to a small hut, formed of wickers intricately
twisted. In this hut were neither chairs nor tables; these people seat
themselves on the ground to eat; instead of beds they spread straw on
the earthy floor, upon which they throw themselves indiscriminately at
night. Their food is milk, cheese, barley-bread and meat, which they
rudely broil on the coals; for they do not understand cooking. Thus I
lived with them, like a dog, until I learned so much of their language,
that I could speak with them and assist them a little in their
ignorance. The simplest rules of living that I prepared for them were
considered as divine commands. My fame soon spread abroad, and all the
villages around sent forth crowds to a teacher, who, they believed, had
been sent to them from heaven. I heard even, that some had commenced a
new chronology from the date of my arrival. All this pleased me only so
much the more, as formerly in Nazar I had been abused for my imprudence
and wavering judgment, and in Martinia despised and commiserated for my
ignorance. True, indeed, is the old proverb; that among the blind the
one-eyed rules. I had now come to a land, where with little
understanding, I could raise myself to the highest dignities. There were
here the best opportunities to employ my talents, since this fruitful
land produced in abundance whatever subserved for pleasure and luxury as
well as usefulness and comfort. The inhabitants were not indocile nor
were they wanting in conception; but since they had been blessed with no
light without themselves, they groped in the thickest darkness. When I
told them of my birth, my native land, of the shipwreck I had suffered,
and of other occurrences in my voyages, not one would credit me. They
thought rather that I was an inhabitant of the sun, and had come down to
enlighten them, wherefore they called me Pikil-Su, that is the sun's
ambassador. For their religion, they believed in and acknowledged a God,
but cared not at all to prove his existence. They thought it enough for
them that their forefathers had believed the same; and this blind
submission to time-honored formulae was their simple and sole theology.
Of the moral law, they were ignorant of all commandments save this: Do
not unto others that which you would not have others do unto you. They
had no laws; the will of the emperor was their only rule. Of chronology
they had but a slight conception; their years were determined by the
eclipses of the sun by Nazar's intervention. Were one asked his age, he
would answer: that he had attained so many eclipses. Their knowledge of
natural science too, was very unsatisfactory and unreasonable; they
believed the sun to be a plate of gold, and the planet Nazar, a cheese.
Their property consisted in hogs, which, after marking, they drove into
the woods: the wealth of each was determined by the number of his swine.
I applied myself, with all the fervor imaginable, to refine and
enlighten this rude, yet promising people, so that shortly I came to be
regarded among them as a saint; their trust in my wisdom was so great,
that they thought nothing impossible with me. Therefore, when overtaken
by misfortune, they would hasten to my hut and pray for my assistance.
Once I found a peasant on his knees before my door, weeping, and
bitterly complaining over the unfruitfulness of his trees, and
beseeching me to use my authority, that his trees should bear fruit to
him abundantly, as of old.
I had heard that this whole country was governed by a Regent, whose
residence, or palace, at that time, was about eight days' travel from
the town where I lived. I say at that time, because the court dwelt, not
in substantial, fixed houses, but in tents; and the residence was moved
at pleasure from one province to another. The ruler at that period was
an old man, named Casba, which signifies, the great emperor. In
consideration of its many large provinces, this country was indeed a
great empire; but, from the ignorance of the inhabitants, who made
little use of their many natural advantages, and also from the absence
of that unanimity among the provinces, which would have dignified and
strengthened their counsels, and subserved for their mutual protection,
they were exposed to the attacks and mockeries of their more vigorous
neighbors, and not unfrequently obliged to pay tribute to nations much
inferior to themselves.
The report of my name and power was spread in a short time even to the
remotest provinces. Nothing could be done without consulting me, as an
oracle, and when any undertaking miscarried, its failure was ascribed to
my indifference or indignation; wherefore, oblations were frequently
made to assuage my anger. Finally the rumor was carried to the ears of
the old emperor, that a great man had come into his dominions, in a
strange dress, who gave himself out as ambassador of the sun, and had
proved himself more than man, by bestowing to the Quamites (thus the
inhabitants were called, after the name of the land, Quama,) wise and
almost divine rules of life. He therefore sent ambassadors, with orders
to invite me to the imperial residence. These were thirty in number, all
clothed in tiger-skins, this dress being considered in Quama the
greatest of ornaments, since none were permitted to wear it, but those
who had distinguished themselves in war against the Tanaquites, a nation
of sensible tigers, and the mortal enemies of the Quamites.
I had built, in the town where I dwelt, a walled house, after the
European style. At the sight of it, the imperial ambassadors were
astonished, and exclaimed that it was a work beyond human powers; they
entered it, as a sanctuary, with devout reverence, and there proclaimed
to me the emperor's invitation in the following speech: "Since the great
emperor, our most gracious lord, reckons his genealogy through manifold
generations, from Spunko, the sun's son, the primary regent of Quama,
nothing could surprise him more agreeably than this embassy; wherefore
his majesty joyfully greets the ambassador of the sun, and humbly
invites him to the capital city of the empire." I answered by expressing
my most humble thanks for the emperor's condescension, and immediately
repaired, with the ambassadors, to the capital. These lords had been
fourteen days on their journey to me, but assisted by my genius, the
return occupied only four days.
I had observed, during my residence in this country, that there were
vast numbers of horses running wild in the woods, and hence rather
burthensome than useful to the inhabitants. I showed to the people how
beneficial these animals might be made to them, and taught them how to
tame these noble creatures. At my suggestion and by my direction, a
number of them were caught and broken in, and thus I was enabled to
mount the ambassadors, and materially shorten the period of our journey.
No idea can be formed of the wonder and astonishment with which the
Quamites witnessed our entry into the city; some were so frightened that
they ran far into the country. The emperor himself dared not, in his
fear, come out from his tent, nor would he stir, until one of the
ambassadors, dismounting his horse, went in and explained the whole
secret to him. Shortly I was, with a great retinue, led into the
imperial tent. The old emperor was seated on a carpet surrounded by his
courtiers. On my entrance, I acknowledged, in the most polite terms, the
exceeding grace his imperial majesty had shown me; thereupon the emperor
arose and asked me what the king of the sun, and father of his family
proposed to do. Conceiving it politic, and even necessary not to
undeceive the Quamites in the opinion they themselves first entertained,
I answered: that his majesty, the king of the sun, had sent me down to
this land to refine, by good laws and salutary rules of life, the
uncultivated manners of the Quamites, and teach them the arts, through
which they might not only resist and repel their valiant and energetic
neighbors, but even extend the boundaries of their own empire; and
added, that I had been ordered to remain with them forever. The emperor
listened to this speech with much apparent pleasure, ordered a tent to
be immediately raised for me near his own, gave me fifteen servants, and
treated me less as a subject than as an intimate friend.
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