“Prince, I cannot,” replied Ziguezague: “I know not the orthography of this sort of words.”
“Write however,” said the Sultan once more.
“I am excessively mortified, to be obliged to disobey your highness,” added Ziguezague; “but—”
“But you are a scoundrel,” interrupted Mangogul, incensed at a refusal so much out of place; “quit my palace, and never appear there more.”
Poor Ziguezague disappear’d, having learn’d by experience, that a man of spirit ought not to enter the palaces of most part of the great, without leaving his sentiments at the gate. His deputy was called. He was a Provençal, frank, honest, and thoroughly disinterested. He flew whither he thought his duty and fortune called him, made a low bow to the Sultan, a lower still to his mare, and wrote everything that the beast vouchsafed to dictate.
I must beg leave to refer those, who are curious to know her discourse, to the archives of Congo. This prince immediately ordered copies of it to be distributed among all his interpreters and professors of foreign languages, both ancient and modern. One said, that it was a scene of some old Greek tragedy, which to him appear’d very moving; another, by the strength of his genius discovered, that it was an important fragment of Egyptian theology: a third pretended, that it was the Exordium of Hannibal’s funeral oration in the Punic language; and a fourth asserted, that the piece was writ in Chinese, and that it was a very devout prayer to Confucius.
While the Literati were trying the Sultan’s patience with their learned conjectures, he recollected Gulliver’s travels, and made no doubt, but that a person, who had lived so long as this Englishman, in an island, where horses have a government, laws, kings, gods, priests, a religion, temples and altars, and who seemed so perfectly well instructed in their manners and customs, was a thorough master of their language. Accordingly Gulliver read and interpreted the mare’s discourse off hand, notwithstanding the orthographical errors, with which it abounded. Nay, it is the only good translation of it in all Congo. Mangogul learned for his own private satisfaction, and for the honour of his system, that it was an historical abridgment of the amours of an old Pacha of three tails with the little mare, which had been attack’d by an infinite number of jackasses before him: a singular anecdote, the truth of which however was not unknown, either to the Sultan, or to any other person at court, at Banza, and in the rest of the empire.
XXIX
The Best Perhaps, and the Least Read of This History
Mangogul’s Dream, or a Voyage Into the Region of Hypotheses
“Waa,” says Mangogul, yawning and rubbing his eyes, “my head aches. Let nobody evermore talk philosophy to me. Such conversations are unwholsome. Last night I lay on empty ideas; and instead of sleeping like a Sultan, my brain work’d more than those of my ministers do in a year. You laugh; but to convince you that I do not exaggerate, and to take my revenge for the bad night which your reasonings gave me, I enjoin you the penance of hearing my dream in its full extent.
“As soon as I began to nod, and my imagination to take its flight, I saw an odd animal bounce by my side. He had the head of an eagle, the feet of a griffon, the body of a horse, and the tail of a lion. I seized him, notwithstanding his prancing; and holding by his mane, I nimbly sprung on his back. Immediately he spread out long wings, which issued from his flanks, and I felt myself carried in the air with incredible swiftness.
“After driving a vast way, I espied, in the emptiness of space, a building suspended as by enchantment. It was a vast one. I will not say that it was faulty in its foundation; for it had none. Its columns, which were not half a foot in diameter, ran up out of sight, and supported arches, which would not have been visible, were it not for the symmetrical lights made in them.
“At the entrance into this edifice it was that my beast first stop’d. At first I was in a doubt whether I should alight: for I apprehended less danger in sitting on my hippogriffon, than in walking under this portico. However, encouraged by the multitude of its inhabitants, and by a remarkable security, which was predominant in their countenances, I alight, go forward, mix with the crowd, and make my observations on those that composed it.
“They were old men, either bloated or feeble; without Embonpoint and strength, and almost all deform’d. The head of one was too little, the arms of another too short. One was humpback’d, another bandy-legg’d. Most of them had no feet, and walk’d on crutches. A breath threw them down, and they remain’d on the ground, till some newcomer was pleased to lift them up. All these defects notwithstanding, they pleased at first sight. They had in their physiognomy somewhat engaging and confident. They were almost naked: for all their clothing consisted of a small rag of stuff, which did not cover the hundredth part of their body.
“I continued to pierce the crowd, and got to the foot of a rostrum, for which a cobweb served as a canopy. The boldness of this rostrum was of a piece with that of the building. To me it seemed placed on the point of a needle, and to support itself there in æquilibrio. I trembled a hundred times for the person, who was in it. He was an old man, with a long beard, as wither’d and naked as any of his disciples: he had a cup full of a subtle fluid before him, into which he dipp’d a straw-pipe; then put it to his mouth, and blew bubbles to a crowd of spectators around him, who were using their utmost endeavours
