When he was ten years old he was sent to a school kept by a savage old friend of the ship-chandler, who carried out the parental system of discipline with even greater vigour; and thus it resulted that when in course of time Gervaas, junior, was moved to the University of Leyden to study for the medical profession—a profession for which he was destined by his father, without the slightest consideration for the young man’s personal wishes—he had contracted such a habit of intense misanthropy that it remained with him as his leading characteristic for life.
Gervaas, though by nature of a somewhat crusty disposition, was by no means a cruel man—at least he had none of that delight in inflicting pain, as such, which characterizes some of our species. In fact he was very fond of most sorts of animals, and confined his malevolence strictly to the human race, of which his experience had been so unfavourable. When his medical education was completed he was sent, as surgeon, for several voyages in an English vessel commanded by another malignant friend of his father; and assuredly the rough and coarse life on board had no tendency to counteract his pessimistic estimate of mankind. The British mariners, with their habitual contempt of foreigners, considered Doctor Van, as they called him, an eligible subject for all sorts of violent practical jokes; which, to do him justice, he retaliated, whenever he got the chance, by the infliction of lingering torments in various surgical operations.
The doctor, who had a considerable gift for languages, soon picked up English, and a copy of the, just then published, ‘Voyages of Captain Gulliver’ falling into his hands, he read them with intense interest; being specially delighted with the account of the crazy philosophers in the third voyage, and, above all, with the horrible description of the Yahoos in the fourth. From this time, indeed, he seems to have invariably used this term in speaking of his fellow-men.
When he had reached the age of about thirty years his mother died; and as his father did not long survive her, the young man inherited an amount of property which afforded him a tolerable income, and rendered him independent of his profession. He resolved to abandon it and visit the East; for, having made several voyages to Bombay, he had come to the conclusion that the Yahoos of that part of the world were less intolerable than the European specimens of the breed.
So he took his passage in an English East Indiaman, and, after an uneventful voyage, landed at Bombay in the early part of the year 1729. As soon as the anchor was cast in the roads he lost not a moment in quitting the ship, having with difficulty escaped the indignity of being obliged to shake hands with the Yahoo captain. On landing he took up his quarters at the house of a trader to whom he had a letter of introduction; and, shortly afterwards, by the merest accident, he encountered in the street an old Parsee merchant, who, though of course a Yahoo, seems not to have been absolutely intolerable in the eyes of the over-sensitive misanthrope, whose notes, at this point, become continuous for the first time.]
‘As I was walking in the shade of a row of trees which lined the street, I was accosted by a very ancient merchant of the Parsee persuasion, who asked me if I had not come from England in the ship which arrived that morning. I replied that I had been a passenger in her, and we fell into conversation. The old gentleman was not nearly so offensive to the senses as are the European Yahoos, and he was perfectly well acquainted with the English tongue. I found that, in the exercise of his calling, he had travelled a great deal in divers parts of Asia; and, from his way of talk, I gathered that the Yahoos of those countries were fully as abominable in his eyes as the European specimens of the breed were in mine own. This common sentiment of loathing for our neighbours proved to ourselves an occasion of union, and before long there was between us as warm a friendship as two Yahoos are capable of entertaining for each other.
‘One day, as he was relating some of his adventures, he told me that, in the days of his youth, when travelling on mercantile business in the Himalayah Mountains, he chanced to meet a Thibetian gentleman named Koot Homi. Having on one occasion done a signal service to this Mr. Homi, it came to pass that the Thibetian, who was of a grateful turn of mind, had always showed himself a faithful friend to the Parsee. The old merchant further informed me that Homi was a man endowed with many and strange gifts; that the famous wonders worked by the Indian magicians or jugglers were the merest play of babies, when compared with the feats accomplished by Homi; and that if you only whispered his name into the ear of one of these magicians when engaged at his work, the magician would give a frightful howl, and run as if Beelzebub himself was in pursuit of him.
‘Among other wonders wrought by this Homi was one which struck me as the most notable of all. This was the power of moving himself, and various articles in contact with his person, in some inscrutable way from one district of the earth’s surface to another, no matter how remote, and apparently in an instant of time. I asked my friend whether he had ever visited Mr. Homi in Thibet. He told me that he had been there, but only once; that a long and terrible journey had to be undertaken; frightful mountain-passes had to be surmounted; that the country in which the magician’s abode was fixed was inhabited by a strange society or brotherhood, the members of which were endowed with many of the powers possessed by Homi himself, who was their chief; and that access, unless by a special permission, which was very rarely granted, was an absolute impossibility.
‘And hereupon the old man added an expression of his never-ceasing regret that he had not availed himself of his opportunity when in Thibet of endeavouring to persuade Mr. Homi to exercise his wonderful power upon him, either by transporting him wholly from the Yahoo regions, or, possibly, by transmuting him into a less hateful form. “I have never ceased to mourn over my stupidity in this respect,” he said, “and, were I only able for it, I should gladly repeat my visit to Thibet. But I am far too old to venture on the fatigues of such a journey. As for you, however, the case is quite different; you are an active and energetic man; and should you think it worth your while to try what might be done in your behalf in the way I have suggested, I will gladly give you a letter which will enable you to pass without hindrance from the Brotherhood to the head-quarters of Mr. Homi.” I thanked him very much for his offer, and asked him to let me think the matter over till next day, when I should give him my answer.
‘The more I reflected on my friend’s kind offer the better was I pleased with the prospect of the journey. Inasmuch as life had become well-nigh intolerable, I cared but little for fatigue and danger. My time also was wholly at my own disposal. So next morning I told the Parsee that I gladly accepted his proposal; and he, without any delay, not only wrote the promised letter of introduction, but also drew up for my use an itinerary of the most convenient road from Bombay to Eastern Thibet, containing notices of the towns, distances, and various peculiarities of the countries through which it was necessary to pass.’