CHAPTER XVIII.
Coliseo, departmental colonial settlement, or chief city of Romalia, on the fifth of Ratu, of the one hundred and eighth century of the Manatitlan era, decio multiplex.
Revered Advisor:—In accordance with your request, I send you an account of a visit, which in company with the chief and our associates, was made to the temporal dominions of the Mouthpat pope, Innocent First, for the rescue of Roman tits, who had been kidnapped on their return from the monthly visitation of the Coliseo schools. The object of the pope, prompting this human theft, was to effect intimidation by offering them as a public sacrifice, or burnt offering to the god of their worship, after the manner of the Tenockitlans, Manchees, and other civilized nations of Mauna Luna. The vatican, or stronghold of this Animalculan sect, styled Christians, is situated on the leads of the Giga church San Lorenzo, formerly occupied by our colonists, and by them transferred to the Mouthpats as a leasehold to be secured in perpetuation for the consideration of reciprocal good will. The church of San Lorenzo, as it is now called, was remodeled by the present Giga Christian dynasty, from the temple of Faustina, by Antoninus, surnamed the Pious, as a distinctive memorial of regard for his wife. In the process of renovation required for the new form of mythological worship, the outer walls, with their architectural ornaments, were left unmolested above the entablature of the cornice, which upon the inner face, looking out upon the leads, contained the sacred dove-cotes or cells. These the Manatitlan colonists had appropriated by ejecting the unbaptized usurpers of the pagan oracles, which in turn they relinquished to the Mouthpat sympathizers of the new ritualists succeeding to the interior of the edifice. The roof was accessible to the Animalculans by a jutting rear X buttress erected for the support of the inner incline of the lateral walls. For a long time the cells were jointly occupied by the Manatitlans and dove descendants of the legitimate Giga divinity of the church, who found themselves controlled in flight by a mysterious power adverse to their natural inclinations and gregarious flock associations. These could have been made excellent substitutes for falcons, but like all of the animal species that congregate in flocks and herds, they were subject to unclean parasites, rendering them obnoxious to purity, which caused their ejection by a process as mysterious to their comprehension, as that which had previously controlled their flight. Ten months previous to our arrival the Giga pope had announced a tourney, or ‘passage-at-arms,’ upon a scale of unprecedented magnificence, for the advancement of a crusade against a race of Moslems, who exacted tribute from Christian pilgrims on their way to the holy sepulchre of their creed. The chief honor to be awarded the victor, was the command of the forces levied for the holy war. But each of the contestants was obliged to offer for the acceptance of the king herald, irrefragable proof of his blood nobility, and faith in the immaculate conception, pope’s infallibility, and Catholic efficacy of saving grace. We arrived in Rome four days previous to the one designated for the grand ceremonial opening of the Animalculan court of valor, which, as a special distinction, was to be honored with the pope’s presence and arbitration. As the descendants of the Mouthpats have not improved in the industrial habits of self-devisement in the economy of time for useful purposes, we were able to secure our position on the roof balance of the portico without being observed. Directly opposite is the vatican, or oracular palace of the Pope Innocent. This is one of the larger dove-cotes which had been finished in silicoth by the Manatitlan colonists as an anthemeque, or place of public assemblage, and is now occupied by his “holiness” as the dove successor divinity of the roof. An hour or more after our arrival, the familiars with their working aids commenced the labors of preparation, and from the character of their employments it is evident that there will be no cooing notes of sympathy expended in behalf of suffering victims.
In the northern gutter of the leads the lists are erected. The galleries rise in backward ascent from the arena. The terraced gradations are adapted to rank founded upon material possessions; the lowest are intended for the nobility, or landed proprietors; the next grade is allotted to the rich in gold and silver, or materials in trade, these are styled merchant commoners; the highest or galley, the tribune informs me, is destined for the gods, as the rabble are facetiously called. If the terms of expression interest you, their generic source can be traced in the Chinese and Babylonish manuscripts of Animalculans deposited by our old travelers in the archives of Maniculæ; from them you will be able to judge of the progressive attainments of the Romans. Our position will enable us to see and hear all that passes.
The canopy of the ladies gallery is of richly woven material, contributed by a kabulistanee convert to the papal creed; as you will not find an equivalent for the word “lady” and its co-appellative “gentleman” in any of our indigenous writings, I will give you the Coliseo tribune’s version. “A lady in Giga acceptation, is a woman who employs, not only her own, but the time of her servants in the adornment of her body with cumbersome material, greatly in excess of her requirements for comfort and comeliness; in addition she does not hesitate to apply pigments to her face. These aids are only limited by the metallic means of supply; and, as your judgment will decide, they detract not alone from personal purity, but render the persons of the Giga females, in fact, repulsive. Still auramentation, with the confirmation of the senses in support of our labors, has proved utterly powerless for the successful stay of the fantastic follies that follow in train from the gratification of woman’s envious rivalry. The term chevalier, or gentleman, is still more vague in acceptation, and application with the Gigas. Like virtue, conscience, morality, and saving grace, the meaning depends upon arbitrary intonations of the voice in application, without true intrinsic value for the expression of means or substance realization. If you, or at least a tit, should ascend to the tier that will be occupied by the gods, and suddenly accost one of the meanest and most blasphemous of the noisy rabble, with the words, “You are no chevalier, or gentleman,” you would be saluted in return with a blow or volley of vile epithets too horrible for exampled utterance.”
He was about to give farther proofs of the illusive beguilements of Giga usage in word conversation, but was interrupted by the blasts of sackbuts, and rumble of kettle-drums, from the tents of the challengers, which were partially concealed by a flowery bosque, which had its source from soil and seeds deposited by the doves. These signals quickened the movements of some blackamoors who were decorating the canopied galleries set apart for the ladies, the pope and his apostolic cardinals. Soon a living stream of Animalculans began to deploy in descent from the buttress turrets of the parapets, and when within hail commenced a series of pantomimic imitations of the blacks’ deformities, accompanied with gibing words, as if in cruel preparation for the scenes of the day. Notwithstanding the serious nature of our mission, enhanced with the fear of after self-censure, we could not withhold our instinctive sympathy when the Ethiopians discomfited their democratic Mouthpat assailants, who showed themselves in every respect inferior to their swarthy opponents. The tilting touches of the blackamoors’ tongues, often caused the Mouthpats to wince and brandish their thorn sticks with the well known hereditary twirl, as if they desired to relieve the smart with customary material arguments. The arrival of the higher orders of Animalculan life, mounted on gayly caparisoned blatidean roaches, beetles, and ants, created a diversion with less freedom in expression, yet the democratic tendency of crowds to turbulence was still apparent, for the knights in their turn became subject to the natural flow of depreciation, but in tones subdued in measured prominence to a comparison within and without the reach of the subject’s lance. Finally the ladies were passed in review with rabberly freedom, but ever mindful of the length of the knight attendants’ spears. And lastly, after the beauty, dress, and palfrey management of the ants by the ladies, had been freely discussed, the squires and grooms in livery, received the dredged overplus of scurrilous scoffs and taunts. When the flourish of trumpets and beadle cries reminded them of the more important calls of selfishness for the rival displacement of early comers, we had the disagreeable opportunity of witnessing a scene of uproar that baffles description. During the struggle for places the bailiffs’ staffs were used with a freedom that denoted the lowest degree of servile subjection on the part of the herd.
While forced to listen to the vile language of the “plebs,” we were constrained to hold in the balance of thought the questionable advantage of speech for the advancement of purity and goodness, for as yet, an affectionate word, or one of sympathy had not been spoken within my hearing. The Coliseo tribune, who acted as my mentor, informed me that the Giga children of Rome lisped oaths with the first impressions of speech, and with the adventure of sentences used them for anathematizing imprecations in demands for selfish gratification. The pursuivants’ calls, “Aller laisser!” Gallic Latin, of imperative command for space, again attracted our attention to the lists, and from the commotion, it was easy to perceive that the curiosity of the vast assemblage was on the tiptoe of expectation. The prolonged flourish of trumpets, with the clashing rattle and rumble of cymbals and kettle-drums, prepared us for the heralded announcement of the approach of the accredited knights who were to lead as challengers and challenged in the jousts for the awards of honor. While passing in review before the ladies’ and popes’ pavilions, we had an excellent opportunity for comparing the relative intelligence of those representing the different nationalities and septs.
The first group were Austro-Germans; these were large in size and heavy in feature and form, with a pervading vis inertia in their sluggish movements. But to my surprise, the tribune informed me that in ritualistic gymnastry, spear, and sword exercise, they were esteemed the leading nation, although rarely successful in their encounters, as they were too slow and methodical in delivering their blows, and as a general result, they were unroached while deciding upon their point of attack. Calling my attention to their movements, I could not fail to observe the sluggish halo that seemed to invest both riders and cockroach steeds; the latter, he said, grew to an enormous size in Germany, as in omnivorous habits they assimilated with their national contemporaries of the human species, whose intelligence was an instinctive reflection from stomach distention to the brain. Notwithstanding the swinish cast of their eyes, and sodden dullness of facial expression, there was out-shadowed a nucleus reflection, through the gross embargo of fungous flesh, that bespoke with its oppressed rays the still existence of the animus of goodness; but it was so faintly luminous that it failed to make its source self-apparent. From the remarks of the tribune, it appeared that the composite peculiarities of the German septs had been derived from a dietetic source, dependent upon the digestive energy of the stomach, and powers of distension for the disposal of sectional ingesta, selected for the expression of divisional patriotism. The mental effect produced was graduated from the wrangling source of irritation, to the philosophic effect of over-distension, conjoined with an owlish expression of vacuity in the region of the eyes. Although in outward expression ritualistically Christian, their mouths and stomachs were infidel in observance on fast-days, strenuously advocating the future resurrection of the body in the stomach. The females belonging to the family of the Count Palatine Von Lushmywitzs, possessed the elements of physical beauty, but there was a subdued expression of the eyes, with a pervading depression of deportment, exhibiting the guardian effects of discipline administered in their male sponsors’ philosophic moods; also in combination, a settled, disgustful despondency, emanating from an association with their lords after they had become filled to repletion with philosophic wisdom. It was easy, however, to perceive the struggling elasticity of purity and goodness in outreaching desire for kindred association, and hopeful deliverance from an entombed death of corruption. Pointing out several knights and ladies of more compact physical attainments, and vivacious movements in the expression of thought correspondence with features, the tribune stated that their improved appearance was solely dependent upon an admixture of foreign blood, opposed to swilling barley mead, and coarse gluttony. Many of these had sent their infants to Manatitlan colonistic schools, and, by the after adoption of their children’s example, had raised themselves to a comparative appreciation of the privileges bestowed for the elevation of humanity above the coarser instincts of its sub-alliance with the lower orders of animality.
The next train, in the knightly roachalvacade, embraced in the retinues of its leaders the representative extremes of humanity in the British Isles. They had bluff apetital features, with but a slight remnant predisposition to the philosophical swinishness that enveloped with fatty folds the direct descendants of their Saxo-German antecedents. In the place of jowled lethargy, they presented bold taural fronts, with a canine expression of tenacity about their mouths, that would cause you to involuntarily shrink from a collision with their heads and teeth. Indeed, their general aspect was stout and still in manifestation, indicating strong bodily self-reliance. The women exhibited a robust air of independence, with the pleasing accompaniment of rosy complexions, in strong contrast with the pale, inanimative features of their German cousins, which declared at sight their freedom from servility, with the exhibition of a coexistent power that could turn or tame the obstinate fronts of the males, when within the circle of their domestic domain.
Following close in the rear of English lead, came the Gallic French, who with chattering volubility and grimace, more than supplied the paucity of words used by those in advance. In personal characteristics they were in every respect foreign to their preceding neighbors. Without listening or replying they all talked in medley, which impressed me with the conviction that they had no definite ideas beyond the present evidences of their existence, or hopes of a future free from the predominating influence of their bodies’ frivolous selfishness. This impression was confirmed by the tribune, who said that sympathy with, and confidence in their kind, were alike ignored, each holding that the gratification afforded by the passing moment, was the only happiness and real hope, life afforded.