The Manatitlans / or, A record of recent scientific explorations in the Andean La Plata, S. A.

by R. Elton Smile

The Actual, or Written History of Manatitla, was commenced in the latter portion of the reign of King Primus, from which dates our transition period, or emancipation of our people from the instinctive rule of the stomach and its engendered lusts. But from its resemblance in factional disruptions to your own, culminating in a parallel to their cycle condition, we will only allude to the causes that immediately preceded, and in tendency wrought the changes that finally effected partition from old habits, and the reverenced usages of instinct. Arbitrary, religious, and civil exactions, seconded by compulsory persuasion against all nonconformists, signalized the tendencies of the period, and gave birth to an ultra instinctive race, styled liberal democrats, who claimed the inalienable right of suffragian equality bestowed upon the lower orders of the animal creation, in the exercise of their untrammeled state of field and forest freedom. The regular national church, and king, persecuted the nonconformists and schismatics with dire vengeance, under the patronage of godhead personification, translating the living heretics with tortures, burnings, and repetitions of drowning suffocations by resuscitations from a moribund state, and like admonitory chastenings in transition for the final judgment of their long enduring and merciful godhead. The persecuted schismatics emigrated to distant lands, in order that they might worship their God of reformation in freedom from invidious restriction of rites. When located, they in turn used the same strenuous arguments to subvert the tribal forms of worship. Gaining the ascendency, with destructive agents, they deprived the aboriginals of local option, forcing them to conform, with death and displacement, until they had obliged the remnant descendants of their benefactors to accept a conditional exile on the outskirts of progressive civilization, in transit for a grave ultimatum. The notable invention of letters signalized the latter portion of the reign of Primus, and to it he laid claim as king rief discoverer; which in the law of entail declares the subject a utensil to be used for the exaltation of kingly prerogative; being identified with everything that pertains to the glory of the throne and its legitimate scionry, his assumptive appropriation was sustained with ministerial affidavits and legal opinions, in attestation of King Primus’s great literary and inventive capacity, allied to clemency, justice, and generosity. But after his death, there was found concealed in the hut of a bard, who had disappeared just anterior to the announcement of the king’s invention, parchments inscribed with the newly introduced characters, which set forth the bard’s adverse claims in these terms:—

With symbolic signs, I have found,

The art of representing sound.

On distant business one can send,

Or with them greet a distant friend.

From this scrap of post circumstantial testimony, it is evident that he either intended to filch from the king, or that the king did obtain his reputation for literary invention from the fior’s or bard’s genius. The latter presumption receives probable confirmation from our aura-mention of similar pretentions to authorship advanced by giga potentates of the past and present age.

The rule of King Primus was of the most despotic description ever enforced by an arbitrary will over the weak subserviency of plodding human instinct, which in kindred affinity with the dogs, is content to give vent to a growling yelp when the freedom of its tail is ground by the heel of the oppressor. Whenever these constitutional growls foreboded an insurrectionary show of teeth, the gregarious spirit of commune revolt was allayed by the grant of a new charter of rights, but if this precedental sop failed to lay the retaliative spirit engendered by oppression, the current of their wrath was turned against their neighbors, with arbitrary conjurations as the provocations, of war. As an infallible test of his infallibility death displaced him to make room for a successor. The people put on sackcloth, and rolled in the dust of humiliation, in mournful semblance of grief for the loss of their demi-god, whose dealings had been grievous and past finding out.

After public eulogistic exaltations, funereal orations and lamentations had subsided, his only son was proclaimed successor with jubilant rejoicings. But Justinatus, the son, resolutely announced his determination to reject the succession, recommending the people to select from the wise men of the nation a council to decide upon a form of government best suited in adaptation for the requirements of the people; but they with their faces and thoughts turned to the rear, in reverence for past usage, clamored for a king. But they found in Justinatus a man as determined for the enforcement of right, as his father had been for wrong. He commanded them to turn their faces to the future, and act according to his direction, not for themselves or their generation alone, but for those who were to succeed them. Submissive to the letter of his direction, but in conformity with precedental creed, they elected eight men by ballot, and instructed them to proclaim Justinatus king. With this evidence of their precedental stupidity he assumed the power of directing them for their own good, selecting four men of as well approved wisdom as his judgment could discover, he placed at their head his early instructor as chief advisor, with the titled designation of Dosch. After this inauguration of an advisorial system, Justinatus, as a pupil, received from them instruction; combining, with his advance in knowledge, his aid in promoting the practical development of means for insuring equality in thought and judgment, necessary for the promotion of the common welfare.

In consideration of the fluctuating variations incident to common usage, their first endeavors were directed for the devisement of a method that would insure exampled conformity in act. The difficulty of effecting uniform compatibility, in the then present habits of the people, soon became apparent. As a dernier of preparation, a division of labor was enforced, according with the personal healthy capacity of each individual. Under this system of equalized industry for community support, the drones were soon discovered, and subjected to the taskmaster supervision of those capable of exercising self control for the common good. Of course the outcry of slavery and oppression became rampant with the ill disposed and vicious; but compelled association with the good soon wrought a happy change; but not before many revolutionary schemes of revolt had been planned by the democratic majority, and nipped in the bud. The great bar to the full success of the renovating process, was the all absorbing lust for selfish gratification, procured from the sacrifice of others’ welfare. Exhortations and demonstrations of the evil effects and instability of pleasures having a material dependency upon the appetites and passions of the body were of no avail. Stimulating provocations, for the production of inordinate appetites, had held an increasing sway from time immemorial, and the infatuation still continued to subvert the efforts of the Doschate of advisors for the establishment of a rational source of happiness, that should extend its blessings for the reciprocal appreciation of all. Laws and penal restrictions proved of easy evasion, and the local option of individuals native to Manatitla, having a desire to establish in perpetuity the happiness of their people, as a beacon light of example, were openly defied by aliens. To restrict emigration, which was claimed as a privileged right ordained as an inherent instinct of animality, they did not dare! as it was declared by the majority an assumption that would directly controvert the rights of septs and nationalities guaranteed by deity. The civilized progenitors of the races represented by tribes and small nationalities occupying the country adjacent to Manatitla, had undoubtedly been parasitical attaches to giga castaways like those of the Manatitlans. This stumbling block of perversion, continued from generation to generation for centuries; until the advent of the Dosch Desiderata, who with the aid of his advisors, turned the tide anarchy by the adoption of foreigners as guests, withholding the privilege of citizenship for bestowal upon their children’s children of the third generation. This inaugurated an era memorable for the change of precedental precept, based upon warlike achievements, into a source of abhorrence with the increasing minority. Thoughtful consideration bestowed upon example for the transmitted improvement of future generations in goodness, produced a wonderful effect upon the actors of the then present generation by the induction of harmony from reciprocal goodwill. Through his wise deductions, that clearly demonstrated the necessity of self government in association with others, woman threw off her shroud of vanity, and labored earnestly for the renewal of her lost prestige of trust, bestowed for the transmission of purity and goodness. The incipient struggles of the minority, under the direction of Desiderata, were short and decisive; but for the time being evoked with groveling bitterness fierce invective from the majority. A memorial address of remonstrance, from the democratic majority, against the abrogation of the rights of citizenship, in the first and second degree of alien residence, set forth, that God had created all men free and equal without respect to color or habits, with the command that they should work out their own way of salvation, and that each individual was guaranteed an inalienable right to participate in the government of his fellow man. “And that, whereas, as hereinafter stated,” the citizens of Manatitla represent different nationalities, it was but just and right that they should have a voice in the council of advisors, in order that they might guard and protect their own liberties and safety. With this preamble, imitated from giga precept, the contest can be realized without repeating the stale platitudes of democratic subterfuge. The promulgated reply was as follows:——

“The Dosch of Manatitla and his advisors, to the alien guests (heretofore, in acceptation, adopted citizens) of their people and country, greeting! We have received your petition, and have reviewed with care the requests you have proffered. Our answer is set forth in the subjoined proclamation.