to interpret the prophecies in his favor.
"Oh, heavens! oh, God of my fathers!" said he, "must I then lose my friend Topaz!"
As he pronounced these words, fetching deep sighs and shedding tears in the midst of his disconsolate followers, the base of the mountain opened, a long gallery appeared to the dazzled eyes in a vault lighted with a hundred thousand torches. Rustan immediately begins to exult, and his people to throw themselves upon their knees and to fall upon their backs in astonishment, and cry out, "A miracle! a miracle! Rustan is the favorite of Witsnow, the well-beloved of Brahma. He will become the master of mankind."
Rustan believed it; he was quite beside himself; he was raised above himself.
"Alas, Ebene," said he, "my dear Ebene, where are you? Why are you not witness of all these wonders? How did I lose you? Beauteous princess of Cachemire, when shall I again behold your charms!"
He advances with his attendants, his elephants, and his camels, under the hollow of the mountain; at the end of which he enters into a meadow enameled with flowers and encompassed with rivulets. At the extremity of the meadows are walks of trees to the end of which the eye cannot reach, and at the end of these alleys is a river, on the sides of which are a thousand pleasure houses with delicious gardens. He everywhere hears concerts of vocal and instrumental music; he sees dances; he makes haste to go upon one of the bridges of the river; he asks the first man he meets what fine country that is?
He whom he addressed himself to answered: "You are in the province of Cachemire; you see the inhabitants immersed in joy and pleasure. We celebrate the marriage of our beauteous princess, who is going to be married to the lord Barbabou, to whom her father promised her. May God perpetuate their felicity!"
At these words Rustan fainted away, and the Cachemirian lord thought he was troubled with the falling sickness. He caused him to be carried to his house, where he remained a long time insensible. He sent in search of the two most able physicians in that part of the country. They felt the patient's pulse, who having somewhat recovered his spirits, sobbed, rolled his eyes, and cried from time to time, "Topaz, Topaz, you were entirely in the right!"
One of the two physicians said to the Cachemirian lord: "I perceive, by this young man's accent, that he is from Candahar, and that the air of this country is hurtful to him. He must be sent home. I perceive by his eyes that he has lost his senses. Entrust me with him, I will carry him back to his own country, and cure him."
The other physician maintained that grief was his only disorder; and that it was proper to carry him to the wedding of the princess, and make him dance. Whilst they were in consultation, the patient recovered his health. The two physicians were dismissed, and Rustan remained along with his host.
"My lord," said he, "I ask your pardon for having been so free as to faint in your presence. I know it to be a breach of politeness. I entreat you to accept of my elephant, as an acknowledgment of the kindness you have shown me."
He then related to him all his adventure, taking particular care to conceal from him the occasion of his journey.
"But, in the name of Witsnow and Brahma," said he to him, "tell me who is this happy Barbabou, who is to marry the princess of Cachemire? Why has her father chosen him for his son-in-law, and why has the princess accepted of him for an husband?"
"Sir," answered the Cachemirian, "the princess has by no means accepted of Barbabou. She is, on the contrary, in tears, whilst the whole province joyfully celebrates her marriage. She has shut herself up in a tower of her palace. She does not choose to see any of the rejoicings made upon the occasion."
Rustan, at hearing this, perceived himself revived. The bloom of his complexion, which grief had caused to fade, appeared again upon his countenance.
"Tell me, I entreat you," continued he, "why the prince of Cachemire is obstinately bent upon giving his daughter to lord Barbabou whom she does not love?"
"This is the fact," answered the Cachemirian. "Do you know that our august prince lost a large diamond and a javelin which he considered as of great value?"
"Ah! I very well know that," said Rustan.
"Know then," said his host, "that our prince, being in despair at not having heard of his two precious curiosities, after having caused them to be sought for all over the world, promised his daughter to whoever should bring him either the one or the other. A lord Barbabou came who had the diamond, and he is to marry the princess to-morrow."
Rustan turned pale, stammered out a compliment, took leave of his host, and galloped upon his dromedary to the capital city, where the ceremony was to be performed. He arrives at the palace of the prince, he tells him he has something of importance to communicate to him, he demands an audience. He is told that the prince is taken up with the preparations for the wedding.
"It is for that very reason," said he, "that I am desirous of speaking to him." Such is his importunity, that he is at last admitted.
"Prince," said he, "may God crown all your days with glory and magnificence! Your son-in-law is a knave."
"What! a knave! how dare you speak in such terms? Is that a proper way of speaking to a duke of Cachemire of a son-in-law of whom he has made choice?"
"Yes, he is a knave," continued Rustan; "and to prove it to your highness, I have brought you back your diamond."
The duke, surprised at what he heard, compared the two diamonds; and as he was no judge of precious stones, he could not determine which was the true one.
"Here are two diamonds," said he, "and I have but one daughter, I am in a strange perplexity."
He sent for Harbabou, and asked him if he had not imposed upon him, Harbabou swore he had bought his diamond from an Armenian; the other did not tell him who he had his from; but he proposed an expedient, which was that he should engage his rival in single combat.
"It is not enough for your son-in-law to give a diamond," said he, "he should also give proofs of valor. Do not you think it just that he who kills his rival should marry the princess?"
"Undoubtedly," answered the prince. "It will be a fine sight for the court. Fight directly. The conqueror shall take the arms of the conquered according to the customs of Cachemire, and he shall marry my daughter."
The two pretenders to the hand of the princess go down into the court.
Upon the stairs there was a jay and a raven. The raven cried, "Fight, fight." The jay cried, "Don't fight."
This made the prince laugh; the two rivals scarce took any notice of it.
They begin the combat. All the courtiers made a circle round them. The princess, who kept herself constantly shut up in her tower, did not choose to behold this sight. She never dreampt that her lover was at Cachemire, and she hated Barbabou to such a degree, that she could not bear the sight of him. The combat had the happiest result imaginable.
Barbabou was killed outright; and this greatly rejoiced the people, because he was ugly and Rustan was very handsome. The favor of the public is almost always determined by this circumstance.
The conqueror put on the coat of mail, scarf, and the casque of the conquered, and came, followed by the whole court, to present himself under the windows of his mistress. The multitude cried aloud: "Beautiful princess, come and see your handsome lover, who has killed his ugly rival." These words were re-echoed by her women. The princess unluckily looked out of the window, and seeing the armor of a man she hated, she ran like one frantic to her strong box and took out the fatal javelin, which flew to pierce Rustan, notwithstanding his cuirass. He cried out loudly, and at this cry the princess thought she again knew the voice of her unhappy lover.
She ran down stairs, with her hair disheveled, and death in her eyes as well as her heart. Rustan had already fallen, all bloody, into the arms of his attendants. She sees him. Oh, moment! oh, sight! oh, discovery of inexpressible grief, tenderness and horror! She throws herself upon him, and embraces him.
"You receive," said she, "the first and last kisses of your mistress and your murderer."
She pulls the dart from the wound, plunges it in her heart, and dies upon the body of the lover whom she adores. The father, terrified, in despair, and ready to die like his daughter, tries in vain to bring her to life. She was no more. He curses the fatal dart, breaks it to pieces, throws away the two fatal diamonds; and whilst he prepared the funeral of his daughter instead of her marriage, he caused Rustan, who weltered in his blood and had still some remains of life, to be carried to his palace.
He was put into bed. The first objects he saw on each side of his deathbed were Topaz and Ebene. This surprise made him in some degree recover his strength.
"Cruel men," said he, "why did you abandon me? Perhaps the princess would still be alive if you had been with the unhappy Rustan."
"I have not forsaken you a moment," said Topaz.
"I have always been with you," said Ebene.
"Ah! what do you say? why do you insult me in my last moments?" answered Rustan, with a languishing voice.
"You may believe me," said Topaz. "You know I never approved of this fatal journey, the dreadful consequences of which I foresaw. I was the eagle that fought with the vulture and stripped it of its feathers; I was the elephant that carried away the baggage, in order to force you to return to your own country; I was the streaked ass that carried you, whether you would or no, to your father; it was I that made your horses go astray; it was I that caused the torrent that prevented your passage; it was I that raised the mountain which stopped up a road so fatal to you; I was the physician that advised you to return to your own country; I was the jay that cried to you not to fight."
"And I," said Ebene, "was the vulture that he stripped of his feathers, the rhinoceros who gave him a hundred strokes with the horn, the clown that beat the streaked ass, the merchant who made you a present of camels to hasten you to your destruction; I dug the cavern that you crossed, I am the physician that encouraged you to walk, the raven that cried out to you to combat."
"Alas!" said Topaz, "remember the oracles: 'If you go to the east you will be at the west.'"
"Yes," said Ebene, "here the dead are buried with their faces turned to the west. The oracle was plain enough, though you did not understand it.
You possessed, and you did not possess; for though you had the diamond, it was a false one, and you did not know it. You are conqueror, and you die; you are Rustan, and you cease to be so: all has been accomplished."
Whilst he spoke thus, four white wings covered the body of Topaz, and four black ones that of Ebene.
"What do I see?" cried Rustan.
Topaz and Ebene answered together: "You see your two geniuses."
"Good gentlemen," cried the unhappy Rustan, "how came you to meddle; and what occasion had a poor man for two geniuses?"
"It is a law," answered Topaz; "every man has too geniuses. Plato was the first man who said so, and others have repeated it after him. You see that nothing can be more true. I who now speak to you, am your good genius. I was charged to watch over you to the last moment of your life.
Of this task I have faithfully acquitted myself."
"But," said the dying man, "if your business was to serve me, I am of a nature much superior to yours. And then how can you have the assurance to say you are my good genius, since you have suffered me to be deceived in everything I have undertaken, and since you suffer both my mistress and me to die miserably?"
"Alas!" said Topaz, "it was your destiny."
"If destiny does all," answered the dying man, "what is a genius good for? And you, Ebene, with your four black wings, you are, doubtless, my evil genius."
"You have hit it," answered Ebene.
"Then I suppose you were the evil genius of my princess likewise," said Rustan.
"No," replied Ebene, "she had an evil genius of her own, and I seconded him perfectly."
"Ah! cursed Ebene," said Rustan, "if you are so malicious, you don't belong to the same master with Topaz: you have been formed by two different principles, one of which is by nature good, the other evil."
"That does not follow," said Ebene, "this is a very knotty point."
"It is not possible," answered the dying man, "that a benevolent being could create so destructive a genius."
"Possible or not possible," replied the genius, "the thing is just as I say."
"Alas!" said Topaz, "my poor unfortunate friend, don't you see that that rogue is so malicious as to encourage you to dispute, in order to inflame your blood and hasten your death?"
"Get you gone," said the melancholy Rustan, "I am not much better satisfied with you than with him. He at least acknowledges that it was his intention to hurt me; and you, who pretended to defend me, have done me no service at all."
"I am very sorry for it," said the good genius.
"And I too," said the dying man; "there is something at the bottom of all this which I cannot comprehend."
"Nor I neither," said the good genius.
"I shall know the truth of the matter in a moment," said Rustan. "We shall see that," said Topaz.
The whole scene then vanished. Rustan again found himself in the house of his father, which he had not quitted, and in his bed, where he had slept an hour.
He awakes in astonishment, perspiring all over, and quite wild. He rubs himself, he calls, he rings the bell. His valet de chambre, Topaz, runs in, in his nightcap, and yawning.
"Am I dead or alive?" cried out Rustan, "shall the beauteous princess of Cachemire escape?
"Does your lordship rave?" answered Topaz, coldly.
"Ah!" cried Rustan, "what then is become of this barbarous Ebene, with his four black wings! It is he that makes me die by so cruel a death."
"My lord," answered Topaz, "I left him snoring up stairs. Would you have me bid him come down?"
"The villain," said Rustan, "has persecuted me for six months together.
It was he who carried me to the fatal fair of Kaboul; it is he that cheated me of the diamond which the princess presented me; he is the sole cause of my journey, of the death of my princess, and of the wound with a javelin, of which I die in the flower of my age."
"Take heart," said Topaz, "you were never at Kaboul; there is no princess of Cachemire; her father never had any children but two boys, who are now at college; you never had a diamond; the princess cannot be dead, because she never was born; and you are in perfect health."
"What! is it not then true that you attended me whilst dying, and in the bed of the prince of Cachemire? Did you not acknowledge to me, that, in order to preserve me from so many dangers, you were an eagle, an elephant, a streaked ass, a physician, and a jay?"
"My lord, you have dreampt all this," answered Topaz; "our ideas are no more of our own creating whilst we are asleep than whilst we are awake.
God has thought proper that this train of ideas should pass in your head, most probably to convey some instruction to you, of which you may make a good use."
"You make a jest of me," replied Rustan, "how long have I slept?"
"My lord," said Topaz, "you have not yet slept an hour."
"Cursed reasoner," returned Rustan, "how is it possible that I could be in the space of an hour at the fair of Kaboul six months ago; that I could have returned from thence, have traveled to Cachemire, and that Barbabou, the princess, and I, should have died?"
"My lord," said Topaz, "nothing can be more easy and more common; and you might have traveled around the world, and have met with a great many more adventures in much less time. Is it not true that you can, in an hour's time, read the abridgment of the Persian history, written by Zoroaster? yet this abridgment contains eight hundred thousand years.
All these events pass before your eyes one after another, in an hour's time. Now you must acknowledge, that it is as easy to Brahma to confine them to the space of an hour, as to extend them to the space of eight hundred thousand years. It is exactly the same thing. Imagine to yourself that time turns upon a wheel whose diameter is infinite. Under this vast wheel is a numerous multitude of wheels one within another.
That in the centre is imperceptible, and goes round an infinite number of times, whilst the great wheel performs but one revolution. It is evident that all the events which have happened from the beginning of the world, to its end, might have happened in much less time than the hundred thousandth part of a second; and one may even go so far as to assert that the thing is so."
"I cannot comprehend all this," said Rustan.
"If you want information," said Topaz, "I have a parrot that will easily explain it to you. He was born some time before the deluge; he has been in the ark; he has seen a great deal; yet he is but a year and a half old. He will relate to you his history, which is extremely interesting."
"Go fetch your parrot," said Rustan, "it will amuse me till I again find myself disposed to sleep."
"It is with my sister, the nun," said Topaz: "I will go and fetch it. It will please you; its memory is faithful, it relates in a simple manner, without endeavoring to show wit at every turn."
"So much the better," said Rustan, "I like that manner of telling stories."
The parrot being brought to him, spoke in this manner: * * * * * N.B. Mademoiselle Catherine Vade could never find the history of the parrot in the commonplace-book of her late cousin Anthony Vade, author of that tale. This is a great misfortune, considering what age that parrot lived in.
The above engraving from Chamber's Guide to the British Museum, represents a head and bust of Memnon, "formed of a single block of fine syene granite, one piece of which is red, while the rest is blue or grayish. The sculptor, with admirable taste, used the red part for the head, and the darker part for the breast. Although the statue has all the characteristics of Egyptian sculpture--the projecting eyes, thick lips, high ears, and small chin--yet such is the beauty of the execution, so much sweetness and mildness is there in the expression of the countenance, that the effect is, on the whole, extremely pleasing.
Here, in short, we have the masterpiece of some Egyptian sculptor of superior genius, whose name has perished. Here also, if we are to accept the statue as a genuine likeness, we behold the features of the great Egyptian Pharaoh, at whose name, some fourteen centuries before Christ, the Mediterranean nations trembled. Doubtless on such a subject the sculptor would do his best; striving, while transmitting the features of the hero to posterity, to produce also a countenance that would be the ideal of Egyptian beauty."--E.
ANDRÉ DES TOUCHES AT SIAM.
André Des Touches was a very agreeable musician in the brilliant reign of Louis XIV. before the science of music was perfected by Rameau; and before it was corrupted by those who prefer the art of surmounting difficulties to nature and the real graces of composition.
Before he had recourse to these talents he had been a musketeer, and before that, in 1688, he went into Siam with the Jesuit Tachard, who gave him many marks of his affection, for the amusement he afforded on board the ship; and Des Touches spoke with admiration of father Tachard for the rest of his life.
At Siam he became acquainted with the first commissary of Barcalon, whose name was Croutef; and he committed to writing most of those questions which he asked of Croutef, and the answers of that Siamese.
They are as follows: DES TOUCHES.--How many soldiers have you?
CROUTEF.--Fourscore thousand, very indifferently paid.
DES TOUCHES.--And how many Talapolins?
CROUTEF.--A hundred and twenty thousand, very idle and very rich. It is true that in the last war we were beaten, but our Talapolins have lived sumptuously, and built fine houses.
DES TOUCHES.--Nothing could have discovered more judgment. And your finances, in what state are they?
CROUTEF.--In a very bad state. We have, however, about ninety thousand men employed to render them prosperous, and if they have not succeeded, it has not been their fault; for there is not one of them who does not honorably seize all that he can get possession of, and strip and plunder those who cultivate the ground for the good of the state.
DES TOUCHES.--Bravo! And is not your jurisprudence as perfect as the rest of your administration?
CROUTEF.--It is much superior. We have no laws, but we have five or six thousand volumes on the laws. We are governed in general by customs; for it is known that a custom, having been established by chance, is the wisest principle that can be imagined. Besides, all customs being necessarily different in different provinces, the judges may choose at their pleasure a custom which prevailed four hundred years ago, or one which prevailed last year. It occasions a variety in our legislation, which our neighbors are forever admiring. This yields a certain fortune to practitioners. It is a resource for all pleaders who are destitute of honor, and a pastime of infinite amusement for the judges, who can with safe consciences decide causes without understanding them.
DES TOUCHES.--But in criminal cases--you have laws which may be depended upon.
CROUTEF.--God forbid! We can condemn men to exile, to the galleys, to be hanged; or we can discharge them, according to our own fancy. We sometimes complain of the arbitrary power of the Barcalon; but we choose that all our decisions should be arbitrary.
DES TOUCHES.--That is very just. And the torture--do you put people to the torture?
CROUTEF.--It is our greatest pleasure. We have found it an infallible secret to save a guilty person, who has vigorous muscles, strong and supple hamstrings, nervous arms, and firm loins; and we gaily break on the wheel all those innocent persons to whom nature has given feeble organs. It is thus we conduct ourselves with wonderful wisdom and prudence. As there are half proofs, I mean half truths, it is certain there are persons who are half innocent and half guilty. We commence, therefore, by rendering them half dead; we then go to breakfast; afterwards ensues entire death, which gives us great consideration in the world, which is one of the most valuable advantages of our offices.
DES TOUCHES.--It must be allowed that nothing can be more prudent and humane. Pray tell me what becomes of the property of the condemned?
CROUTEF.--The children are deprived of it. For you know that nothing can be more equitable than to punish the single fault of a parent on all his descendants.
DES TOUCHES.--Yes. It is a great while since I have heard of this jurisprudence.
CROUTEF.--The people of Laos, our neighbors, admit neither the torture, nor arbitrary punishments, nor the different customs, nor the horrible deaths which are in use among us; but we regard them as barbarians who have no idea of good government. All Asia is agreed that we dance the best of all its inhabitants, and that, consequently, it is impossible they should come near us in jurisprudence, in commerce, in finance, and, above all, in the military art.
DES TOUCHES.--Tell me, I beseech you, by what steps men arrive at the magistracy in Siam.
CROUTEF.--By ready money. You perceive that it may be impossible to be a good judge, if a man has not by him thirty or forty thousand pieces of silver. It is in vain a man may be perfectly acquainted with all our customs; it is to no purpose that he has pleaded five hundred causes with success--that he has a mind which is the seat of judgment, and a heart replete with justice; no man can become a magistrate without money. This, I say, is the circumstance which distinguishes us from all Asia, and particularly from the barbarous inhabitants of Laos, who have the madness to recompense all kinds of talents, and not to sell any employment.
André des Touches, who was a little off his guard, said to the Siamese, that most of the airs which he had just sung sounded discordant to him; and wished to receive information concerning real Siamese music. But Croutef, full of his subject, and enthusiastic for his country, continued in these words: "What does it signify that our neighbors, who live beyond our mountains, have better music than we have, or better pictures; provided we have always wise and humane laws? It is in that circumstance we excel. For example: "If a man has adroitly stolen three or four hundred thousand pieces of gold, we respect him, and we go and dine with him. But if a poor servant gets awkwardly into his possession three or four pieces of copper out of his mistress's box, we never fail of putting that servant to a public death; first, lest he should not correct himself; secondly, that he may not have it in his power to produce a great number of children for the state, one or two of whom might possibly steal a few little pieces of copper, or become great men; thirdly, because it is just to proportion the punishment to the crime, and that it would be ridiculous to give any useful employment in a prison to a person guilty of so enormous a crime.
"But we are still more just, more merciful, more reasonable in the chastisements which we inflict on those who have the audacity to make use of their legs to go wherever they choose. We treat those warriors so well who sell us their lives, we give them so prodigious a salary, they have so considerable a part in our conquests, that they must be the most criminal of all men to wish to return to their parents on the recovery of their reason, because they had been enlisted in a state of intoxication. To oblige them to remain in one place, we lodge about a dozen leaden balls in their heads; after which they become infinitely useful to their country.
"I will not speak of a great number of excellent institutions, which do not go so far as to shed the blood of men, but which render life so pleasant and agreeable that it is impossible the guilty should avoid becoming virtuous. If a farmer has not been able to pay promptly a tax which exceeds his ability, we sell the pot in which he dresses his food; we sell his bed, in order that, being relieved of all his superfluities, he may be in a better condition to cultivate the earth."
DES TOUCHES.--That is extremely harmonious!
CROUTEF.--To comprehend our profound wisdom, you must know that our fundamental principle is to acknowledge in many places as our sovereign, a shaven-headed foreigner who lives at the distance of nine hundred miles from us. When we assign some of our best territories to any of our Talapolins, which it is very prudent in us to do, that Siamese Talapolin must pay the revenue of his first year to that shaven-headed Tartar, without which it is clear our lands would be unfruitful.
But the time, the happy time, is no more, when that tonsured priest induced one half of the nation to cut the throats of the other half, in order to decide whether Sammonocodom had played at leap-frog or at some other game; whether he had been disguised in an elephant or in a cow; if he had slept three hundred and ninety days on the right side, or on the left. Those grand questions, which so essentially affect morality, agitated all minds; they shook the world; blood flowed plentifully for it; women were massacred on the bodies of their husbands; they dashed out the brains of their little infants on the stones, with a devotion, with a grace, with a contrition truly angelic. Woe to us! degenerate offspring of pious ancestors, who never offer such holy sacrifices! But, heaven be praised, there are yet among us at least a few good souls, who would imitate them if they were permitted.
DES TOUCHES.--Tell me, I beseech you, sir, if at Siam you divide the tone major into two commas, or into two semi-commas; and if the progress of the fundamental sounds are made by one, three, and nine?
CROUTEF. By Sammonocodom, you are laughing at me. You observe no bounds.
You have interrogated me on the form of our government, and you speak to me of music!
DES TOUCHES.---Music is everything. It was at the foundation of all the politics of the Greeks. But I beg your pardon; you have not a good ear; and we will return to our subject. You said, that in order to produce a perfect harmony-- CROUTEF.--I was telling you, that formerly the tonsured Tartar pretended to dispose of all the kingdoms of Asia; which occasioned something very different from perfect harmony. But a very considerable benefit resulted from it; for people were then more devout toward Sammonocodom and his elephant than they are now; for, at the present time, all the world pretends to common sense, with an indiscretion truly pitiable. However, all things go on; people divert themselves, they dance, they play, they dine, they sup, they make love; this makes every man shudder who entertains good intentions.
DES TOUCHES.--And what would you have more? You only want good music. If you had good music, you might call your nation the happiest in the world.
THE BLIND PENSIONERS AT QUINZE VINGT.
A SHORT DIGRESSION.--When the hospital of the Quinze Vingt was first founded, the pensioners were all equal, and their little affairs were concluded upon by a majority of votes. They distinguished perfectly by the touch between copper and silver coin; they never mistook the wine of Brie for that of Burgundy. Their sense of smelling was finer than that of their neighbors who had the use of two eyes. They reasoned very well on the four senses; that is, they knew everything they were permitted to know, and they lived as peaceably and as happily as blind people could be supposed to do. But unfortunately one of their professors pretended to have clear ideas in respect to the sense of seeing, he drew attention; he intrigued; he formed enthusiasts; and at last he was acknowledged chief of the community. He pretended to be a judge of colors, and everything was lost.
This dictator of the Quinze Vingt chose at first a little council, by the assistance of which he got possession of all the alms. On this account, no person had the resolution to oppose him. He decreed, that all the inhabitants of the Quinze Vingt were clothed in white. The blind pensioners believed him; and nothing was to be heard but their talk of white garments, though, in fact, they possessed not one of that color.
All their acquaintance laughed at them. They made their complaints to the dictator, who received them very ill; he rebuked them as innovators, freethinkers, rebels, who had suffered themselves to be seduced by the errors of those who had eyes, and who presumed to doubt that their chief was infallible. This contention gave rise to two parties.
To appease the tumult, the dictator issued a decree, importing that all their vestments were red. There was not one vestment of that color in the Quinze Vingt. The poor men were laughed at more than ever.
Complaints were again made by the community. The dictator rushed furiously in; and the other blind men were as much enraged. They fought a long time; and peace was not restored until the members of the Quinze Vingt were permitted to suspend their judgments in regard to the color of their dress.
A deaf man, reading this little history, allowed that these people, being blind, were to blame in pretending to judge of colors; but he remained steady to his own opinion, that those persons who were deaf were the only proper judges of music.
[1] [1] Boodhism, is described in _Webster's Dictionary_ as "a system of religion in Eastern Asia, embraced by more than one third of the human race. It teaches that, at distant intervals, a Boodh, or deity, appears, to restore the world from a state of ignorance and decay, and then sinks into a state of entire non-existence, or rather, perhaps, of bare existence without attributes, action, or consciousness. This state, called _Nirvana_, or _Nicban_, is regarded as the ultimate supreme good, and the highest reward of virtue among men. Four Boodhs have thus appeared in the world, and passed into _Nirvana_, the last of whom, Gaudama, became incarnate about 500 years before Christ, from his death, in 543 B.C., many thousand years will elapse before the appearance of another; so that the system, in the mean time, is practically one of pure atheism."
The serpent has ever been a significant emblem in religion and mythology. Being "the most subtle beast of the field," it was naturally accepted as the emblem of wisdom. With its tail in its mouth it formed a circle, which was regarded by the ancients as the emblem of eternity.
Moses set up a brazen serpent on a cross in the wilderness as an emblem of healing. Æsculapius, the god of medicine, is seen on ancient statues with a serpent twining around a staff by his side, symbolizing health, prudence and foresight. Hygiea, the goddess of health, is represented in works of art as a virgin dressed in a long robe and feeding a serpent from a cup. Mercury is always shown holding in his right hand a wand with two twined serpents. The nine coiled serpents in the above engraving, correspond with the nine muses in the Grecian mythology. The cobra, whose poison is death, is an emblem of the destroying power, and destruction, or rather change, symbolizes new formation, renovation or creation. Thus eternal formation, proceeds from eternal destruction. The serpent also figures in a beautiful allegory concerning the introduction of knowledge among mankind, _i.e._, "the knowledge of good and evil."--E.
BABABEC.
When I was in the city of Benarez, on the borders of the Ganges, the country of the ancient Brahmins, I endeavored to instruct myself in their religion and manners. I understood the Indian language tolerably well. I heard a great deal, and remarked everything. I lodged at the house of my correspondent Omri, who was the most worthy man I ever knew.
He was of the religion of the Brahmins: I have the honor to be a Mussulman. We never exchanged one word higher than another about Mahomet or Brahma. We performed our ablutions each on his own side; we drank of the same sherbet, and we ate of the same rice, as if we had been two brothers.
One day we went together to the pagoda of Gavani. There we saw several bands of Fakirs. Some of whom were Janguis, that is to say, contemplative Fakirs; and others were disciples of the ancient Gymnosophists, who led an active life. They all have a learned language peculiar to themselves; it is that of the most ancient Brahmins; and they have a book written in this language, which they call the _Shasta_.
It is, beyond all contradiction, the most ancient book in all Asia, not excepting the _Zend_.
I happened by chance to cross in front of a Fakir, who was reading in this book.
"Ah! wretched infidel!" cried he, "thou hast made me lose a number of vowels that I was counting, which will cause my soul to pass into the body of a hare instead of that of a parrot, with which I had before the greatest reason to flatter myself."
I gave him a rupee to comfort him for the accident. In going a few paces farther, I had the misfortune to sneeze. The noise I made roused a