I then told them that this large people must have a head, or governor, to keep them to their duties, and to determine matters of property, and all disputes amongst them. Here they one and all nominated me; but I told them I apprehended I could be more useful other ways, having too many things in my head for the general good, to confine myself to any particular province; but if they would excuse me in presuming to recommend a person, it should be Nasgig. And immediately Nasgig being sent for, and accepting it, they conferred it upon him.

All things, as I judged, went on in so smooth a way, in reference to the new colony, that I was preparing, with the assistance of the proper officer, expresses to be sent with the king's gripsacks into the several provinces, with notice of these orders, and an appointment for a rendezvous. But while this was doing, abundance of people came crowding about me to be informed whether I thought it safe for them to go; and I believe I had fully satisfied all their scruples, when by some management of the ragans, who, having so long declared Mount Alkoe to be inhabited by Mindrack, did not care the people should all of a sudden find out they had deceived them, there was a report ran current, that though I and my bearers, who were all Mount Alkoe men, returned safe, yet if any of the Brandleguarpines had gone, they would never have come back again. This rumour coming to my ears, and fearing whitherto it might grow, I had no small prospect of a disappointment, and I thereupon stopped issuing the orders till I had considered what farther to do in the affair. At length, being persuaded I had already satisfied abundance of their scruples, and in order to dissipate the doubts of others, and to familiarise them in some measure to the country and people of Mount Alkoe, I proposed a prize to be flown for, and gave notice of it for six days all about the country, both to those of Mount Alkoe, and those of Sass Doorpt Swangeanti, that whoever, except those who were with me in the late expedition, should make the most speedy flight to the governor's of Mount Alkoe, to carry a message and bring me an answer from Lasmeel, should have one of my pistols, with a quantity of powder, and so many balls; and the person who should be second, should have a cutlass and belt. The time being fixed, very few had entered in the first two or three days; but on the third day came several over from Alkoe to enter, which the Brandleguarpines seeing, and having equal inclination to the prize, after half a dozen of them had entered on the fourth morning, before noon on the fifth I had near sixty of them on my list, besides the Alkoe men, making in all about one hundred.

The time of starting was fixed for the sixth morning, from off the rock on the back-side of the palace, upon my firing a pistol.

This unusual diversion occasioned a prodigious confluence of spectators; for scarce a person in Brandleguarp, except those who were either too young or too old for flight, but were upon one or other of the rocks; even the king himself and all his court were there, with infinite numbers from all distant parts.

I had despatched a letter by one of my old bearers to Lasmeel some days before, to inform him of it, that he might get two letters ready wrote, one to deliver to the first, and another to the second messenger, but not to take farther notice of the rest. Now, my flight-race being for the equal benefit of both the kingdoms, it happened, as I was in hopes it would, that so many of the Mount Alkoans coming over to me to be entered, and staying with me till the flight began, and such vast numbers of persons meeting of both nations upon the Black Mountain, to see them go and return, and several of the Swangeantines going, out of bravado, quite through with the flyers; the intercourse of the two nations was that day so great, and the discourse they had with the natives and miners so stripped the Swangeantines of their old apprehensions of danger from Mount Alkoe, that in three days after the whole dread of the place was vanished, and he would then have been thought mad who had attempted to revive it.

The time being come, I set my flyers in a row on the outer edge of the rock; and having given notice that no one should presume to rise till the flyers were on the graundee, and at such a distance, I then let the flyers know I should soon give fire; which I had no sooner done but down they all dropped as one man, as it were, headlong from the edge of the mountain, and presently the whole field were after them. They skimmed with incredible swiftness across the face of the plain, between the rock and the mountain; the force of which descent swung them as it were up the mountain's side in an almost upright posture, till seeming to sweep the edge of the mountain with their bellies, they slid over its surface till they were lost in the body of the Swangean, our rocks echoing the shouts of the mountaineers. I fired my pistol, by my watch, at nine o'clock in the morning, but had no occasion to inquire when it was thought they would return, for every one was passing his opinion upon it. Some said it could not be till midnight, or very near it; and others, that it would be almost next morning. However, we went to dinner, and coming again about six o'clock by my watch, I was told by the people on the rock, as the general opinion (for it was then topfull), that they could not yet be expected for a long time; and the major part concluded they could not be half-way home yet; when, on a sudden, we heard a prodigious shout from the mountain, which growing nearer and nearer to us, and louder and louder, in a few moments came a slim young fellow, and nimbly alighting on the rock, tripped briskly forward, as not being able to stop himself at once from the violence of the force he came with, and delivered me a letter from Lasmeel as I was sitting in my chair. I gave him joy of the prize, and ordered him to come to my apartment so soon as I got home, and he should have it. I then asked him where he had left the other flyers; he told me he knew nothing of them since he came past the forges in his return; for there he met them going to Lasmeel.—"Why that," says I, "must be a great way on this side the governor's." He told me about an hour's flight. I then told him, as he must be strained with so hard a flight, it would be better if he lay down, and called on me in the morning. He thanked me, and after he had told me his name was Walsi, he said he would take my advice, and springing up as light as air, went off, the rock being quite thronged with those who had followed from the mountain to see the victor.

When Walsi came in, it was just seven o'clock by my watch; so that, according to the best computation by miles I could make from their descriptions of things, I judged he had flown at little more or less than at the rate of a mile a minute.

I stayed till near nine o'clock upon the rock, where it being cold and the time tedious, I was taking Quilly home with me, and designed that Maleck should wait for the coming of the second; but hearing again a shout from the mountain I resolved to see the second come in myself. The noise increasing, I presently saw the whole air full of people very near me, for I had retired near two hundred paces from the edge of the rock to give room to the flyers to alight, and expected nothing less than to be borne down by them; when I spied two competitors, one just over the back of the other, the uppermost bearing down upon the other's graundee, their heads being just equal; so that the under man perceiving it impossible to sink lower for the rock, or to mount higher for the man above him, and as darting side-ways would lose time, and fearing to brush his belly against the rock, he slackened, just to job up his head in his antagonist's stomach; which giving the upper man a smart check with the pain, and the under one striking at that instant one bold stroke with his graundee, he fell just with his head at my feet, and the other man upon him, with his head in the under man's neck.

Thus they lay for a considerable time, breathless and motionless, save the working of their lungs, and heaving of their breasts; when each asked me if he was not the first, and the under man giving me a letter, I told them "No, Walsi had been in almost two hours ago." They both said it was impossible; they were sure no glumm in the Doorpt could outfly either of them. I ordered them both to call on me in the morning, and I would see they should have right done to their pretensions. The under man had but just told me his name was Naggitt, when another arrived, who, seeing Naggitt before him, told me he was sure he was second; but on seeing the other also he gave it up.

I would stay no longer, it being now so late; but the next morning I was informed that all the rest had stopped at the mountain but two, who were obliged to give out before, being overstrained, and unable to hold it.