Types of Prose Narratives: A Text-Book for the Story Writer

by Harriott Ely Fansler

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.

"Do you see! This friend is angry with me according to the tone of his voice. What did he say?" asked the fat man turning towards Busyong and Islao.

Islao nudged Busyong to get him to come out of the store.

"Come, come, let us go home, lest we hurt with our laughing their susceptible feelings, especially of that young dandy—pardon me, I mean doctor," said Islao aside to Busyong when they reached the corner of a street and turned to the left.

"O Momus, son of Mox!" exclaimed Busyong smiling after a short time, "how jocund indeed must you be with the people here!"

"Surely, he must be," said Islao.

"By the way, I remember that the tailor—that is, the fat man—seemed to boast a political party."

"Oh, yes!"

"What is that party?"

"It is called the National Talukap Party. You know, this country is a democracy in name, but an oligarchy in fact, as the people here say, for the government is in the hands of only a very few of the native countrymen; most of the power is in foreign hands. So the Talukap party aims to reverse the condition of things; nay, to have the control of the government wholly in the hands of the people of this country. I am warmly in favor of this policy. But what I do find objectionable in this Talukap party is their affectation and tautology, and their pretension and empty show in their outward conduct. For my part, I believe in doing things silently but effectively. On the other hand, I am not in favor of the other party, which is called the National Kinagisnan Party, whose policy is to be contented slavishly with the present condition of things or with whatever condition for the time being. The people who belong to this Kinagisnan party are very few in comparison with those that belong to the Talukap party. Being in very close contact with the sovereign, the Kinagisnan people are very apt to become flatterers."

"Moreover, the ideal of your Talukap party, I think, becomes less feasible, if not impossible, when you consider these dandies like those two chums over there who are clasping one another by the waist. Indeed, they live in a very peculiar world by themselves."

"And with Momus, I suppose, as their Supreme Being."

"Ha, yes, I should think so, too. But after all they are not to be blamed. Everything goes step by step. Even my native country in the planet Earth has had the same defects practically as these people here. Now I am glad that there in my native land the people, especially the young men, have reached, by education and the bitter lesson of experience, of course, a stage where their old views of the world have become greatly changed, most especially in this respect: now they hate affectation under any form whatever, whether in dress, manners, knowledge or in deeds."

"Why, that is a condition to be envied greatly."

By this time the two friends, Busyong and Islao, were standing in front of the farmer's house. The old man and his wife were awaiting them in order that all might dine together. The rest of the day glided by pleasantly.

Next morning Busyong decided to return to the planet Earth, although the old farmer and his son tried to delay him longer in Jupiter. He promised to come back to them. While in his large balloon, and recollecting vividly all the things he had observed in the country he was leaving, Busyong let his mind run upon the following ancient lines:

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!"

Just then he remembered with a start that when he had begun to crank his balloon he had taken out his sound assorters and laid them on the edge of the car. He had wanted to hear the familiar noise without distribution in order to feel that all was safe. And now when he looked for those precious assorters he could not find them. They must have fallen overboard. And worst of all, he had neglected to get the whole explanation from the Jupiterite.

—Manuel Candido.