Niels Klim's Journey Under The Ground Part 8

The author of it was not only left unpunished, but was overwhelmed with the general applause, for the originality and boldness of his attempt.

The Martinians are used to console themselves on such occasions, by repeating the following couplet:

"The project ended in defeat; The notion was, however, neat."

When I had thoroughly studied the character of this people, I determined to take advantage of their weaknesses, and by some outrageous proposal, to gain their respect, and thereby better my condition.

I revealed my intention to a shrewd old monkey, who encouraged me in these words:

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Who would succeed in Martinianic land, Must quit the useful, to propose the grand; Hazard those deeds, that to the gallows pave, Thy fortune's made! Here's honor for the knave.

After due deliberation, my choice became fixed upon that ornament for the head, called wigs by us.

I had previously noticed that the land contained a mult.i.tude of goats; with the hair of these creatures I proposed to manufacture my wigs.

My step-father had been engaged in the trade, and as I had, with the inquisitiveness of youth, observed the process, I could bungle at it.

I made a goat's-hair wig for myself, and adorned with it, presented myself to the president.

This dignitary was astonished at the new and uncommon decoration. He seized it from my head, and placing it on his own, hastened in a very undignified manner to the mirror.

So enraptured was he at the sight of the pompous protuberance, that he shrieked out: "Divine art, how like a G.o.d am I!"--he sent immediately for her Grace to partake in his joy.

She was not less pleased than her lord. She embraced him, kissed him, and a.s.sured him that she had never seen him more handsome.

The president addressed himself to me with much less haughtiness than usual. "O Kakidoran!" he exclaimed, "if this discovery of yours pleases the Council as well as it does me, your fortune is made. You may hope for the most honorable reward the State can give."

I gracefully thanked his Excellency, and immediately wrote a pet.i.tion, which I requested him to lay before the Council.

His Excellency took the pet.i.tion together with the wig, and departed. I understood that all the cases which were to come before the Council on this day, had been laid aside, so inquisitive were all to hear and examine my project. The work was accepted, and an appropriate reward was adjudged to me. I was called up to the council-chamber on my entrance, an old monkey stood up, and, after thanking me in the name of the whole republic, proclaimed that my work should be rewarded as its merits deserved. He then demanded, what length of time I should need to fabricate another such head ornament? I replied, that it was reward enough for me, that my curious workmans.h.i.+p had gained the approbation of the great men who composed the Council; for the rest, I bound myself to make another wig in two days, and also to manufacture wigs enough for the whole city in a month, provided I might count upon the a.s.sistance of a number of monkeys, accustomed to work. This proposal, however, made the president hot about the ears, and he exclaimed with much eagerness: "It is not fit, my dear Kakidoran, that this ornament should be common to the whole town, for being worn by all without distinction, it will become ordinary and vulgar. The n.o.bility must necessarily be distinguished from the common people."

All the members of the Council concurred in his opinion, and the city marshal was charged to take heed that none might wear wigs, except the n.o.bility. This order having been promulgated, the citizens thronged about the council-chamber to obtain t.i.tles and charters, which some bought with their money and others procured through the influence of their friends; so that in a short time full half the city were made n.o.bles. But when pet.i.tion after pet.i.tion poured in from the provinces, that the like favor should be extended to them, the Council, being possessed with a righteous fear of riot and civil war, finally determined to allow every one, without distinction of rank, to wear a wig. I thus had the pleasure to see the whole Martinianic nation wigged before I left that country. And, truly, it can scarcely be imagined what a funny and ridiculous appearance the wigged monkeys presented! The whole nation made so much of my project and its accomplishment, that a new era was established; and from this time the wig-age commenced in the Martinianic annals.

In the meantime, I was loaded with praises and panegyrics, wrapped in a purple cloak, and returned from the court-house in the president's own sedan, the same _porteur_, who had formerly been my companion, serving me now as a horse. From that day I dined continually at the table of his Excellency.

With this glittering preamble to my fortunes, I commenced in earnest the work I had promised, and soon finished wigs enough for the whole Council; and after sweating for a month--a patent of n.o.bility was brought to me, couched in the following words:

"In consideration of the most excellent and very useful discovery, through which Kakidoran, born in Europe, has made himself worthy of the grat.i.tude of the whole Martinianic nation, we have resolved to advance him to the rank of n.o.bility, so that he, and all his descendants shall be regarded as true n.o.blemen, and enjoy all the prerogatives and rights, of which the n.o.bility of Martinia are in possession. Furthermore, we have determined to dignify him with a new name; he shall therefore from this day, be no longer called Kakidoran, but Kikidorian. Moreover, since his new dignity requires a richer style of living, we grant him a yearly pension of two hundred patarer. Given in the council-chamber of Martinia, the fourth day of the month Merian, under the great seal of the Council."

Thus I suddenly became changed from a simple porteur to a respectable n.o.bleman, and lived for a long while in great splendor and honor. When it was known that I was high in the favor of the president, everybody sought my good will and protection. It is the fas.h.i.+on among the poets of Martinia to panegyrize the tails of eminent monkeys, as it is with us to eulogize the beauty of women. Several poets commended the beauty of my tail, although I had none. To say everything on this subject in a few words--their fawning servility towards me was so extreme, that a certain man of high rank and station, did not hesitate, nor did he feel himself shamed, to promise me that his wife should make herself agreeable to me in every possible way, provided that I would recompense him by recommending him to the president.

When I had lived in this land for the s.p.a.ce of two years, at first a _porteur_ and latterly a n.o.bleman, an incident, entirely unexpected, occurred, which was nearly fatal to me. I had, up to this period, been in special favor with his Excellency; and her Grace, the president's lady, had evinced so much kindness to me, that I was regarded the first among all her favorites. She was distinguished for her virtue; but, when in the lapse of time, I perceived one after another ambiguity in her expressions, I began to feel a kind of mistrust, especially when I observed that

Sometimes she'd smile with wanton grace, Then unto sudden tears give place, While gazing, silent, on my face With mild devotion.

Her's all the art of tenderness, That pleases while it wounds no less: Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, half-covered, now confess Their strange emotion.

Then sighs that can no reason find, Or used to make my reason blind:-- Her hands upon her breast entwined-- Ah, female charms!

Her face would lose its rosy hue For lily's, washed in morning dew; Aurora's purple blazed anew, In love's alarms.

My suspicions finally became certainties, when a chambermaid brought to me, one day, the following note:

"DEAREST KIKIDORIAN,--

"The feeling which I owe to my rank and high descent, and the modesty natural to my s.e.x, have until now hindered the sparks of love which have long secretly burned in my bosom, from breaking forth in open flame: but I am weary of the combat, and my heart can no longer resist its bewitching enemy. Have pity for a female, from whom only the utmost degree of burning love could have been able to extort a confession.

PTARNNSA."

I cannot describe how singularly I felt at this entirely unexpected declaration of love: but as I held it far better to expose myself to the revenge of a furious female, than to sin against the order of nature, by a shameful intimacy with a creature that did not belong to my race, I immediately wrote an answer in the following words:

"GRACIOUS LADY,--

"The constant favor his Excellency, your husband, has shown to me; the undeserved benefits he has bestowed upon me; the moral impossibility of fulfilling your gracious desires; and many other reasons, that I will not name, move me to submit to the anger of my gracious lady, rather than consent to an action that would stigmatize me as the most ungrateful and the lowest among all two-legged creatures. Besides, what is desired of me, would be more bitter to satisfy than death itself. This action, if I yielded to it, would effect the ruin and dishonor of one of the most respected families in the State, and my willingness would injure, before all others, that person who has desired it. With the most solemn and sincere a.s.surances of grat.i.tude I must here declare, gracious lady, that under no circ.u.mstances can I fulfil your wishes in this respect, although to all other commands I promise a blind obedience.

KIKIDORIAN."

Underneath I wrote the following admonition:

"Think of this heavy sin; Fly ere it be too late: Shall vice, the pander, newly in, Bow virtue to the gate?

Let Cupid not ensnare you-- His cunning wiles beware you, The sweets of sin soon vanish-- Its pains, ah! who can banish."

This letter I sent to the lady, and it had the effect that I expected; her love was changed to the bitterest hatred:--

In vain her glowing tongue would vie, To tell her frightful agony.

Despairing shame her accents clip;-- They freeze upon her snowy lip.

No tears did flow; _such_ pain oft dries The blessed current of the eyes: Fell vengeance from her black orbs glanced, While like a fury, she advanced.

Nevertheless, she restrained her fury, until she recovered the love-letter she had written to me. As soon as she had secured it, she hired some persons to testify by oath, that, in the absence of his Excellency, I had attempted to violate her. This fable was represented with so much art and speciousness, that the president did not doubt its truth, and I was ordered to be put in prison. In this, my despairing condition, I saw no other means of deliverance than to confess the crime, with which I had been charged, and supplicate the president for mercy: which being done, my life was conceded, but I was doomed to perpetual imprisonment. My charter of n.o.bility was immediately taken from me, and I was sent to the galleys as a slave. My destination was to one of the s.h.i.+ps belonging to the republic, which then lay ready to sail for _Mezendares_, or the Land-of-wonders. Thence were brought the wares that Martinia cannot produce. This s.h.i.+p, on board of which my evil fortune had now cast me, was propelled both by sails and oars; at each oar two slaves were chained: consequently I was attached to another unfortunate. I was consoled, however, by the prospect of a voyage, during which I hoped to find new food and nourishment for my insatiable inquisitiveness, although I did not believe all that the seamen told of the curious things I should see. Several interpreters accompanied us; these being made use of by the Mezendaric merchants in the course of their commercial negotiations.

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CHAPTER XI.

THE VOYAGE TO THE LAND-OF-WONDERS.

Before I proceed to the description of this sea-voyage, I must first caution all severe and unmerciful critics not to frown too much at the narration of things, which seem to war against nature, and even surpa.s.s the faculties of faith in the most credulous man. I relate incredible but true things, that I have seen with my own eyes. Raw and ignorant ninnies who have never started a foot from their homes, regard every thing as fable, whose equal they have never heard of or seen; or, with which they have not been familiar from childhood. Learned people, on the contrary, especially those who have a deep knowledge of natural history, and whose experience has proved to them how fruitful nature is in changes, will pa.s.s a more reasonable sentence upon the uncommon things narrated.

In former days a people were found in Scythia, called Arimasps, who had but one eye, which was placed in the middle of the forehead: another people, under the same climate, had their foot-soles turned out backwards, and in Albany were people born with gray hairs. The ancient Sanromates ate only on every third day and fasted the other two; in Africa were certain families who could bewitch others by their talk; and it is a well known fact, that there were certain persons in Illyria, with two eye-b.a.l.l.s to each eye, who killed people by merely looking at them: this, however, they could do, only when they were angry; then their fierce and scintillating stare was fatal to whomever was rash or unfortunate enough to meet it: on the mountains of Hindostan were to be found whole nations with dog's heads, who barked; and others who had eyes in their backs. Who would believe this and even more, if Pliny, one of the most earnest writers, had not solemnly a.s.sured us, that he had neither heard nor read the least hereof, but had seen it all with his own eyes? Yes, who would have imagined that this earth was hollow; that within its circ.u.mference were both a sun and moon, if my own experience had not discovered the secret? Who would have thought it possible, that there was a globe, inhabited by walking, sensible trees, if the same experience had not placed it beyond all doubt? Nevertheless, I will not pick a quarrel with any one, on account of his incredulity in this matter, because I must confess, that I myself, before I made this voyage, mistrusted whether these tales might not have arisen from the exaggerated representations of seamen, or that they were the result of that well-known qualification of this cla.s.s of men, familiarly styled the "spinning a yarn."

In the beginning of the month Radir, we went on board our s.h.i.+p, weighed anchor, and

The wind in swelling sails embraced the bending masts, And, like an arrow in the air, with lightning speed, The keel shrieked through the foaming billows.

The wind was fair for some days, during which we poor rowers had a comfortable time, for the oars were not needed; but on the fourth day it fell calm;