A bee phaeton had been held in requisition by the Dosch to observe the effect of Gnipho’s ghastly array of dead savages, in pantomimic postures, with eyes distended, and outspread hands as if to guard them from a sight of horror, while their backs were half turned as if deprived of life in the act of escaping. When the Dosch arrived the savages were collected around the mouth of the cave, none having the courage to enter, but all, in act, were seemingly desirous of obtaining the intervention of his neighbor’s body as a shield of protection from apprehended danger. But at last the luskols (Indian priests) were forced into the cave, the lesser grades being used as a wall of protection for the higher. The Dosch described the scene as horribly ludicrous when viewed from their interior position. “The fearful contortions of the diviners, as they were pushed forward with their unwilling features half exposed to the light from the mouth of the cave, in contrast with the dead dramatis personæ, furnished a study that we had no desire to prolong with the concurrent evidence of fear derived from auramentation. It was a hideous sight to behold these otherwise untamable brutes in human form, so abjectly appalled by the dead bodies of their late companions, simply from an arrangement in posture at variance with their traditional ideas of cadaverous propriety. Bewildered with the first glance, they became, of themselves, immovable with fright, until the reactive alarm from the cavernous sound reëchoing the breathing catches and grunts of the struggling mass behind, caused a frantic effort of wild desperation to regain the freedom of the open air. This contagious spasm of fear relaxed the energies of those obstructing the entrance so that they were held intact, a helpless mass immovably impacted over which those from the interior made their way in scrambling disregard to the means used in effecting their liberation. Paralyzed in voice utterance, the only sounds heard were shuffling struggles accompanied by a succession of ucks from the by no means gentle action of elbows upon opposing bodies. When at length the blockading mass crawled forth, bruised to the necessity of quadrumanal progression, their luskols had disappeared in flight. After the cave was cleared we took a high bee-line, from which we were able to see at a glance the many curious scenes enacted in their flight from the self pursuit of fear, which in variation kept us constantly convulsed with laughter.” The day was well advanced before all the stragglers regained their despoiled camps; then, without apparent regard for their loss, they commenced a second exodus to a grove under the precipice to the south of the city, with the evident intention of being as far from the reach of the cave’s scroul influence as possible. With the certainty that fear would prevent the savages from trespassing within the prescribed boundaries to the north of the city, Giganteo assured the prætor that the citizens need have no fear of using the pasture and arable land, accessible by the basin bridge, in the night time, if they would only take the precaution to dress in white, as that was esteemed by the superstitious of all tribes and nations as the favorite color of spirits blest and damned. The besiegers soon became aware of a marked improvement in the physical condition of the besieged. This they attributed to the unfitness of their luskols, who were deposed and sacrificed upon their own altars.
The Dosch, relator, here remarked that instinctive fear excited from variations in natural cause and effect from accustomed routine was alike common to all the grades of animality. The dogs howl in dread from the sun’s eclipse; the cattle of the plain, and swine, the omnivorous congeners of mankind, will pass unheeded the dead of their species when the cadavers are natural in position, but when suspended from the branches of trees they become affected with the impulse of dismay, and like the savages endeavor to escape from the scene without the motive power of direction. The birds of the air are paralyzed with the same impulse of instinctive terror when warned of the earthquake’s shock by the herald hush of preternatural silence. Taking advantage of these controlling fears of instinct, that prey upon themselves in retributive reprisal, “philosophic” and designing mythologists have conjured creed distinctions of imaginary attributes, which in combination are unitized under the style of soul. Upon this mythical assumption of attributive materialization, they have founded a system of compensation for its salvation, in a mazy labyrinthine series with a graceless cordon of conditional graces under the signs manual of saving, efficacious, sufficient, and redeeming privilege. In contradistinction to this undefinable process of instinctive soul elaboration in the scale of rewards, follows the retributive punishments, but so inextricably intermixed in chaotic confusion that ritualistic words of lunatic designation are used in substitution for the intelligent expression of thought. The priesthood of the sects, or herds, that become adherents to the formalistic use of words and material rites administered for instinctive regeneration, talk in public discourse to distract attention from the peaceful meditation of goodness. Notwithstanding the multiplication of these most daring and glaring inconsistencies, which have banished with truth, sincerity, and confiding affection, the masses of humanity are still held in blind subserviency to the fantastic rules and rulers of instinct in kind. You will scarcely wonder at the slight impression that we have made with auramental thought substitution, while the instincts of your race are constantly distracted with the bellowing exhortations of sectarian recruiting preachers, in combination with inebriate oaths of the passers-by in derisive profanation of the worshiper’s selfish deity. Perversion and prostitution have so degraded the legitimate powers of perception, that the pleasures of instinct have become a source of misery from nauseating excess in over-indulgence. Indeed, from sheer disgust, we have been inclined to discontinue auramentation altogether; for your pretentious civilization, and enlightened progression, is in fact nothing more than savagery refined with art inventions for the morbid gratification of instinctive sensuality; which in recurring product have given birth to toil and turmoil, greedy vexations, strife, hatred, and kindred passionate distempers cultivated in infatuated expectation that they will yield in reversion, after death, instinctive soul purification and a heaven of peaceful rest.
The Betongese, although accounted savages, would disdain to acknowledge ancestors who had tried in ecclesiastical courts of luskol diviners, dogs and swine for murder and witchcraft, with the farcical appointment of civil pleaders of the legal fraternity for their defense! notwithstanding the special qualifications of the latter for clearing the defendants. From your ready appreciation of the higher dispensations of purity and goodness, in exampled enactment, the Heracleans can scarcely realize that you ever participated in the ruling delusions of your race. Your physical comfort, and freedom from insect plagues, in Heraclea, are derived in legacy bestowal from ancestral purity, devised in healthy enactment by the Heracleans to fulfill present attainment. By following these corrective indications your race would forefend their kind from the imposed penalties of curative professional plagues, who flourish from maladies bred in the flesh from over indulgence, in reckless regard of the certain recurrence of like from like. Our falcons in their three days passage across the ocean emit the osprey’s fishy odor; and with assimilation the English, French, and Germans exhibit in national crudities the instinctive effects of diet. These are inevitable facts that admit of no palliative variation in deterioration in the process of hereditary transmission; this an observer of a single generation cannot fail to discover if possessed with ordinary powers for comparative discernment. With this deviation from our historical path, designed for Mr. Welson’s analytical aid in the classification of evidences pertaining to the gradation developments of instinct, we will now continue our relation by quoting from the chronicler Titview’s record of the 2d Falcon Era.
CHAPTER XVII.
The sons and daughters of Indegatus had become so well instructed in the art of propagating and training falcons, and withal so much interested under the direction of the volantaphs, that little danger was apprehended of another interruption in the supply. When all the preliminaries required for the voyage across the Atlantic had been well matured, Soartus, with a fleet of five well equipped falcons, and fifty giantesco companions with their families started from Maniculæ on their adventurous flight, and on the evening of the third day arrived at Corvo without accident, and were overjoyed, in their descent to perch on the Corcovado, to observe signals of welcome as if their coming had been anticipated by premonition. In explanation, after a joyful welcome, the Corcovadians said, that a watch had been kept constantly on the alert in expectation of their reappearance, during the interval of the many centuries which had elapsed since the last falcon departure. From whatever cause the delay, their confidence had grown in strength, that it would be overcome in time by the enterprise of their parentcedors.
This reunion of the Manatitlans with their Corcovadian colonistic outposts occurred on or about the 17th day of August, 1071 of your era. The voyage had been well sustained by the novice falcons, notwithstanding their recently acquired art of taking flying fish, and feeding while beating support with their wings under the favoring aid of the parachute. But hunger is an apt teacher of method with available means for its appeasement. The first warning the aeronauts received of their near approach to the land of their destination was the invasion from the windward of a suffocating odor, of the most disgusting taint, that pervaded the howdahs and assailed their olfactories, causing a violent retching, that made them apprehend pending calamity. But the pilots, when sufficiently recovered from the sudden invasion, consulted their charts of odor currents “laid down” by old navigators, and found that the nauseating cause of alarm proceeded from the confluent waft of Celtic and Congo exhalations from humanity, with the conjunctive loom of garlic odor in eructation from the inhabitants of Portugal, Spain, and south of France conveyed seaward by the evening land breeze, marked Fœdisima allium exhalata ab homine. After giving vent to humorous instinctive comparisons referring to the gross habits necessary for the production of odors so foul in their distant waft, the old peak of rendezvous on the island of Corvo saluted their glad vision.
Our reception by the Corcovadians was affectionate beyond comparison, fully enlisting our utmost resources in reciprocation. When the exuberance of our mingled congratulations had subsided into the calm current of sympathetic inquiry, we soon became aware of their loving troth to Manatitlan habits and customs. In evidence of the lealty of their alliance they had diminished a third in numbers, as they averred, with a marked improvement in all the essentials of affectionate purity and goodness, manifest alike in the conservation of physical and thoughtful development. In answer to our solicitous inquiries with regard to the welfare of the Animalculan and Giga population of the islands and mainland, they answered that the inhabitants of the islands had become more barbarously enlightened and destructive in tendency than they were in our ancestors’ time; our Mouthpat deportations having added fuel to the degenerative tendency of the islanders. Still the good example of the colonists had attracted a desire on the part of parents that their children should be educated under their instruction.
After a week’s sojourn with the Corcovadians, Soartus continued his flight to Rome, taking with him as many of the islanders as the howdahs could accommodate. “Soaring to our first poise above the peaks of the Asturian mountains, we hailed with matin song of praise the broad disc of the sun as it reflected, in ascendency from the horizon, the inequalities of the countries beneath in panoramic light and shadow. As it rose in the full splendor of its mellowed morning beams, dispelling with sparkling reflection the dewy mists of night, a scene of surpassing beauty greeted our vision. From north to south, on the western confines of the Iberian peninsula, a lofty range of intervaled mountains formed an inviting attraction for the mist clouds, which dispensed their moisture as an ever replenishing source of rivers and streams, that in descent received tributary contributions rendering with their water supply the valleys fertile. In continuation from the extreme south, a sea-coast range of lesser height formed an interior basin, by circle inclosure to the east and north. Within this, cities and hamlets were scattered with seeming indications of peaceful repose. Our eyes were held entranced with the beautiful scene; and we wondered how man, gifted with rational powers of discernment, could fail to discover in the lovely blendings Creative indications designed for his direction in the paths of peace and purity. The falcons, left to the guidance of their own pleasurable instincts, just cleared the topmost sprays of the trees in their gliding circuits, but in soaring above villages and cities the volantaphs raised their flight beyond the reach of missile weapons. While passing over the city of Leon from north to south, we saw men, women, and children, flocking in crowds to the western gate. Curious to learn the cause of this early commotion, so unwonted from the descriptions we had read of Iberian habits, the falcons were directed over the point of attraction. Clearing in circling descent the spires and towers of the cathedral church, our ears were saluted with the mingled bellowings of a seemingly enraged animal, and loud shouts arising from a multitudinous collection of voices pitched in range from the shrill stridency of childhood, through the medium grades of maturity, to the vacuous piping tones of senility. Over-reaching the gate towers, we beheld collected in an amphitheatre within wooden barriers, a large concourse of people, intently gazing with boisterous plaudits upon an encounter between a horned animal of the quadruped species and armed men with garments covered with tinsel. The sides of the enraged beast were dabbled and trickling with gore, from the many wounds inflicted by the knives and spears of the “sportsmen.” In quick apprehension of the effect of this cruel pastime, which had caused our wives to give utterance to a cry of pitying horror, the volantaphs suddenly depressed the falcon’s tail from the “bishop’s run to the pope’s nose” causing it to fan-spread, intercepting the view of objects beneath from the howdah; then soaring to a poise, soon left the revolting scene and arbiters of cruel instinct beyond the compass of eyes and ears. One of our Corcovadian correlatives then explained the nature and origin of the amusement. He said that it was styled by the Spanish a taurista, and when it commenced at sunrise it was styled “taurista hiquete para almuerzo.” The practice was said to have been derived originally from a race inhabiting an island in the northern ocean, who utilized the flesh of the slain brutes, and as a sequence assimilated their pugnacious characteristics.
“Here the volantaph directed our attention to the cultivated beauties of the Apuljarras of the Sierra Constantina, glowing in the morning sun with the brightest tints of verdure. Wooded and vine-covered slopes in ever varying contrast with the colored transitions of Moslem taste in the adornment of their dwellings, offered the strongest evidence of peaceful desire, notwithstanding minarets indicating fanatical worship abounded in cities, villages, and hamlets. As we neared these scenes, citizens and busy cultivators were seen engaged in their varied occupations, their forms reduced by distance from giga size to tits, reminded us of our own happy Manatitlan homes. The swift flight of the falcons conveyed the impression, from change in perspective, of gliding transitions of the same persons into varied employments, as if endowed with illimitable versatility. These pleasing illusions, which in slower flight, and nearer approach, would have truthfully depicted the miserable realities of servile selfishness, so much dreaded in foreboded encounter with the Giga races of Europe and Asia, caused Uffea, the wife of Soartus, to exclaim, with a long drawn sigh—“If they could only see and know us, I am sure they could not resist our happy example that would make this scene a reality? They surely would not refuse a joyous boon that would make these blooming valleys and verdant hills echo with songs of gladness raised in morning and evening praise? What joy for the future Manatitlan voyagers while floating over these lovely creations, if our people could be made the means of making these groves and hill-sides resound with songs of praise to unite in their fullness, with our peoples, in mid air responses?” Our hopeful sighs united with the desire that her vision might prove prophetic. But alas, our falcons had scarce attained their poise for descent to the Valentinian shore, when fierce human cries, and the loud clangor and blasts from cymbals and trumpets, resounded from the plain below. The volantaphs reverse in the direction of the falcons for descent, brought into view two hosts engaged in battle encounter, each in defiant utterance shouting their war cries, one, “Dios y Santiago,” and the opposed “Allah é Profeta.” No persuasion could induce our wives to venture a glance toward the fearful scene, and at their request the volantaphs changed the falcon’s course to shut out the view.
Our Corcovadian correlative in defining the casus belli, said, that those fighting under the standard that bore the device of a grotesque head covering, supported by crossed keys, were styled Christians, and the words, God and Saint James, which they ejaculated with their blows, were the names of the alleged author and favorite supporter of their creed, which theoretically inculcated peace and goodwill among men. While those arrayed under the crescent banner, who were as vehemently calling upon their god and prophet, were enjoined by their creed to destroy all who denied the divinity of the prophet. Both alike, in practice, upheld the absurd inconsistency of their creeds with the destructive fanaticism of instinctive passion. “As you will in Rome be forced to give heed to the brutal enactments practiced under the style of religion, and opposing variations in Constantinople and Jerusalem, it will be well to advise you of the texts that are quoted in train by the Christian sect, who are exhorted, in the battle cry, to strike for the God of Israel, and Saint James,—kill and spare not! The grateful teeth of the saws read in this wise, Do good to those who despitefully treat thee! He that smiteth thee on one cheek turn to him the other also! He that gives to the poor, lendeth to the Lord. Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will return to you increased an hundred fold. These renderings of implied selfishness in mild vapory language, you have seen exemplified in enactments this morning; but you have still to undergo the painful infliction of sympathy for physical torments that priestcraft imposes, with the anticipation of ‘hellish’ power, for the punishment of dissenting heretics. The Moslems, who are fighting under the crescent standard, advocate sensual lunacy, with the prescribed belief in a heavenly haram peopled with houri,—a name that they bestow upon sensuously beatific women, who in Christian terms are styled angels,—these are used as lures for inciting the lusts of the faithful in blind subserviency to the commands of their leaders. Like their Christian opponents, the masses depend solely upon priestly interpretation for the reconciliation of contradictory passages in their creed, openly bestowing their reverential fealty upon the sensually mad, who are called saints or santons, esteeming the touch of their lewd filthiness as a vise for heavenly reward. Their priests, who are styled dervishes, wear the same hermaphrodite vestments in ceremonial enactments that distinguish their Christian counterparts, deriving oracular inspiration from dizziness invoked by rapid whirling gyrations. But as I see that you are oppressed with sorrowful disgust, in view of the rank stupidity you are about to encounter, we will allow you, with these premonitions, to verify the construction we give of the ancient giga Roman senator’s apothegm, which should have been, ‘whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make sensually mad.’ With the instinctive example of destructive hatred inculcated as a morning lesson for appetizing the kindred germ of children’s passions, in the bloody struggle between inhuman art aids and brute strength, exhibited in the bull’s blind rage, we can easily fill the intervening space in life with occupations in qualification for the battle enactments of the meridian.”