things to other countries, from whence we in return brought the materials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning, canting, libelling, and the like occupations; every one of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand. That wine was not imported among us from foreign countries to supply the want of water or other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears; suspended every office of reason for a time, and deprived us of the use of our limbs, till we fell into a profound sleep; although it must be confessed that we always awaked sick and dispirited, and that the use of this liquor filled us with diseases which made our lives uncomfortable and short. But, besides all this, the bulk of our people supported themselves by furnishing the necessities or conveniences of life to the rich, and to each other. For instance, when I am at home, and dressed as I ought to be, I carry on my body the workmanship of a hundred tradesmen; the building and furniture of my house employ as many more; and five times the number to adorn my wife. I was going on to tell him of another sort of people, who get their livelihood by attending the sick, having upon some occasions informed his honour that many of my crew had died of diseases. But here it was with the utmost difficulty that I brought him to apprehend what I meant. He could easily conceive that a Houyhnhnm grew weak and heavy a few days before his death, or, by some accident, might hurt a limb; but that Nature, who works all things to perfection, should suffer any pains to breed in our bodies, he thought impossible, and desired to know the reason of so unaccountable an evil. I told him we fed on a thousand things, which operated contrary to each other; that we eat when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst; that we sat whole nights drinking strong liquors, without eating a bit, which disposed us to sloth, inflamed our bodies, and precipitated or prevented digestion. That it would be endless to give him a catalogue of all diseases incident to human bodies; for they could not be fewer than five or six hundred spread over every limb and joint; in short, every part, external and intestine, having diseases appropriated to itself. To remedy which there was a sort of people bred up among us in the profession or pretence of curing the sick. And because I had some skill in the faculty, I would, in gratitude to his honour, let him know the whole mystery and method by which they proceed. Their fundamental is that all diseases arise from repletion. Their next business is, from herbs, minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed, barks of trees, birds, beasts, and fishes, to form a composition, for smell and taste, the most abominable, nauseous, and detestable they can possibly contrive, which the stomach immediately rejects with loathing; and this they call a vomit. Or else, from the same storehouse, with some other poisonous additions, they command us to take a medicine equally annoying and disgustful, which drives down all before it; and this they call a purge. These have But besides real diseases, we are subject to many that are only imaginary, for which the physicians have invented imaginary cures. their several names, and so have the drugs that are proper for them; and with these our female yahoos are always infested. Our great excellency in this tribe is their skill at prognostics, wherein they seldom fail: their predictions in real diseases, when they rise to any degree of malignity, generally portending death, which is always in their power, when recovery is not; and, therefore, upon any unexpected signs of amendment after they have pronounced their sentence, rather than be accused for false prophets, they know how to approve their sagacity to the world by a seasonable dose. They are likewise of special use to husbands and wives who have grown weary of their mates, to eldest sons, to great ministers of state, and often to princes. I had formerly upon occasion discoursed with my master upon the nature of government in general, and particularly of our own excellent constitution, deservedly the wonder and envy of the whole world. But having here accidentally mentioned a minister of state, he commanded me some time after to inform him what species of yahoo I particularly meant by that appellation. I told him that a first or chief minister of state, who was the person I intended to describe, was a creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least makes use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie but with a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the surest way of preferment, and whenever he begins to praise you to others, or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wise man retires, and gives over all hopes. There are three methods by which a man may rise to be chief minister. The first is, by knowing how with prudence to dispose of a wife, a daughter, or a sister; the second, by betraying or undermining his predecessor; and the third is, by a furious zeal in public assemblies against the corruptions of the court. But a wise prince would rather choose to employ those who practise the last of these methods; because such zealots prove always the most obsequious and subservient to the will and passions of their master. That these ministers, having all employments at their disposal, preserve themselves in power by bribing the majority of a senate or great council; and at last, by an expedient called an act of indemnity (whereof I described the nature to him) they secure themselves from after-reckonings, and retire from the public, laden with the spoils of the nation. The palace of a chief minister is a seminary to breed up others in his own trade; the pages, lacqueys, and porter, by imitating their master, become ministers of state, in their several districts, and learn to excel in the three principal ingredients of insolence, lying, and bribery. Accordingly they have a subaltern court paid to them by persons of the best rank; and sometimes, by the force of dexterity and impudence, arrive, through several gradations, to be successor to their lord. One day, in discourse, my master having heard me mention the nobility of my country, was pleased to make me a compliment, which I could not pretend to deserve; that he was sure I must have been born of some noble family, because I far exceeded in shape, colour, and cleanliness, all the yahoos of his nation, although I seemed to fail in strength and agility, which must be imputed to my different way of living from those other brutes; and, besides, I was not only endued with the faculty of speech, but likewise with some rudiments of reason, to a degree, that, with all his acquaintance, I passed for a prodigy. He made me observe, that among the Houyhnhnms, the white, the sorrel, and the iron-grey, were not so exactly shaped as the bay, the dapplegrey, and the black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a capacity to improve them; and therefore continued always in the condition of servants, without ever aspiring to match out of their own race, which, in that country, would be reckoned monstrous and unnatural. I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me; but assured him, at the same time, that my birth was of the lower sort, having being born of plain, honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education ; that nobility among us was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution, merely for the sake of money, whom they hate and despise. That the production of such marriages are generally scrofulons, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations; that a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood, and a healthy robust appearance is disgraceful in a man of quality. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dulness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride. Without the consent of this illustrious body, no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered; and these nobles have likewise the decisions of all our possessions, without appeal. CHAPTER VII. THE AUTHOR'S GREAT LOVE OF HIS NATIVE COUNTRY. THE reader may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to give a free representation of my own species among a race of mortals who are already too apt to conceive the vilest opinion of human kind, from that entire congruity betwixt me and their yahoos. But I must freely confess that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human corruptions, had so far opened my eyes, and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light, and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was impossible for me to do before a person of so acute a judgment as my master, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before, and which with us would never be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewise learned from his example an utter detestation of all falsehood or disguise; and truth appeared so ainiable to me that I determined upon sacrificing everything to it. Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation of things. I had not been a year in this country before I contracted such a love and veneration for the inhabitants that I entered on a firm resolution never to return to human kind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms in the contemplation and practice of every virtue, where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall to my share. However, it is now some comfort to reflect that in what I said of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so strict an examiner; and upon every article gave as farourable a turn as the matter would bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth? I have related the substance of several conversations I had with my master during the greatest part of the time I had the honour to be in his service, but have, indeed, for brevity's sake, omitted much more than is here set down. When I had answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed to be fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early, and commanding me to sit down at some distance (an honour which he had never before conferred upon me), he said he had been very seriously considering my whole story, so far as it related both to myself and my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we made no other use than by its assistance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which Nature had not given us; that we disarmed ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very successful in multiplying our original wants, and seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours to supply them by our own inventions. That as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common yahoo; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather. Lastly, that I could neither run with speed nor climb trees like my brethren (as he called them), the yahoos in this country. That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our gross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue, because reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature, which was therefore a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people; although he manifestly perceived that in order to favour them I had concealed many particulars, and often said the thing which was not. He was the more confirmed in this opinion because he observed that, as I agreed in every feature of my body with other yahoos, except where it was to my real disadvantage, in point of strength, speed, and activity, the shortness of my claws, and some other particulars where Nature had no part; so from the representation I had given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions, he found as near a resemblance in the disposition of our minds. He said the yahoos were known to hate one another more than they did any different species of animals and the reason usually assigned was the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in themselves. He had, therefore, begun to think it not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and, by that invention, conceal many of our deformities from each other, which would else be hardly supportable. But he now found he had been mistaken, and that the dissensions of those brutes in his country were owing to the same cause with ours, as I had described them. For if (said he) you throw among five yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, cach single one impatient to have all to itself; and therefore a servant was usually employed to stand by, while they were feeding abroad, and those kept' at home were tied at a distance from each other; that if a cow died of age, or accident, before a Houyhnhnm could secure it for his own yahoos, those in the neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it; and then would ensue such a battle as I have described, with terrible wounds made by their claws on both sides, although they were seldom able to kill one another, for want of such convenient instruments of death as we had invented. At other times the like battles have been fought between the yahoos of several neighbourhoods, without any visible cause; those of one district watching all opportunities to surprise the next before they are prepared. But if they find their project hath miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies, engage in what I call a civil war among themselves. That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones, of several colours, whereof the yahoos are violently fond; and when part of these stones is fixed in the earth, as it sometimes happeneth, they will dig with their claws for whole days to get them out; then carry them away, and hide them by heaps in their kennels; but still looking round with great caution, for fear their comrades should find out their treasure. My master said he could never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a yahoo; but now he believed it might proceed from the same principle of avarice which I had ascribed to mankind: that he had once, by way of experiment, privately removed a heap of these stones from the place where one of his yahoos had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal missing his treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to the place, there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the rest; began to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till he ordered a servant privately to convey the stones into the same hole, and hide them as before which, when his yahoo had found, he presently recovered his spirits and good humour, but took care to remove them to a better hiding-place, and hath ever since been a very serviceable brute. My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, that in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighbouring yahoos. He said it was common, when two yahoos discovered such a stone in a field, and were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away from them both; which my master would needs contend to have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for our credit not to undeceive him, since the decision he mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us: because the plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they contended for; whereas our courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause while either of them had anything left. : My master, continuing his discourse, said there was nothing that rendered the yahoos more odious than their undistinguishing appetite to devour everything that came in their way, whether herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all mingled together and it was peculiar in their temper that they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth at a greater distance than much better food provided for them at home. If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to burst; after which Nature had pointed out to them a certain root as a cure. There was also another kind of root, very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be found, which the yahoos sought for with much eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced in them the same effects that wine hath upon us. It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep in the mud. I did indeed observe that the yahoos were the only animals in this country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute. Neither has their language any more than a general appellation for those maladies, which is borrowed from the name of the beast, and called hnea-yahoo. As to learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like, my master confessed he could find little or no resemblance between the yahoos of that country and those in ours. For he only meant to observe what parity there was in our natures. He had heard, indeed, some curious Houyhnhnans observe that, in most herds, there was a sort of ruling yahoo (as among us there is generally some leading or principal stag in a park), who was always more deformed in body and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest. That this leader had usually a favourite, as like himself as he could get. This favourite is hated by the whole herd; and, therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the person of his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor at the head of all the yahoos in that district, young and old, male and female, come in a body and insult him. But how far this might be applicable to our courts and favourites, and ministers of state, my master said I could best determine. I durst make no return to this malicious insinuation, which debased human understanding below the sagacity of a common hound, who hath judgment enough to distinguish and follow the cry of the ablest dog in the pack, without being ever mistaken. My master told me there were some qualities remarkable in the yahoos, which he had not observed me to mention, or at least very slightly, in the accounts I had given him of human kind. He said that the males would quarrel and fight with the females as fiercely as with each other; a practice of such brutality as no other sensitive creature ever arrived at. Another thing he wondered at in the yahoos was their strange disposition to dirt; whereas there appears to be a natural love of cleanliness in all other animals. As to the two former accusations, I was glad to let them pass without any reply, because I had not a word to offer upon them in defence of my species, which otherwise I certainly had done from my own inclinations. But I could have easily vindicated human kind from the imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had been any swine in that country (as unluckily for me, there were not), which, although it may be a sweeter quadruped than a yahoo, cannot, I humbly conceive, in justice, pretend to more cleanliness; and so his honour himself must have owned, if he had seen their filthy way of feeding, and their custom of wallowing and sleeping in the mud. My master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants had discovered in several yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable. He said a fancy would sometimes take a yahoo to retire into a corner, to lie down, and howl and groan, and spurn away all that came near him, although he were young and fat, wanted neither food nor water; nor did the servants imagine what could possibly ail him. And the only remedy they found was to set him to hard work, after which he would infallibly come to himself. To this I was silent, out of partiality to my own kind; yet here I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen, which only seizeth on the lazy, the luxurious, and the rich; who, if they were forced to undergo the same regimen, I would undertake for the cure. His honour had further observed that a female yahoo would often stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing by, and then appear and hide, using many antic gestures and grimaces, and when any of the males advanced would slowly retire, looking often back, and, with a counterfeit show of fear, run off into some place, where she knew the male would follow her. At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or four of her own sex would get about her, and stare, and chatter, and grin, and then turn off with gestures that seemed to express contempt and disdain. Perhaps my master might refine a little on these speculations, which he had drawn from what he had observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement and much sorrow that the rudiments of coquetry should have place by instinct in womankind. CHAPTER VIII. THE AUTHOR RELATES SEVERAL PARTICULARS OF THE YAHOOS. THE GREAT VIRTUES OF THE HOUYHNHNMS. THE EDUCATION AND EXERCISE OF THEIR YOUTH. THEIR GENERAL ASSEMBLY. As I ought to have understood human nature much better than I supposed it possible for my master to do, so it was easy to apply the character he gave of the yahoos to myself and my countrymen and I believed I could yet make farther discoveries from my own observation. I therefore often begged his honour to let me go among the herds of yahoos in the neighbourhood, to which he always very graciously consented, being perfectly convinced that the hatred I bore these brutes would never suffer me to be corrupted by them and his honour ordered one of his servants, a strong sorrel nag, very honest and goodnatured, to be my guard, without whose protection I durst not undertake such adventures. For I have already told the reader how much I was pestered by those odious animals upon my first arrival. And I afterwards failed very narrowly, three or four times, of falling into their clutches, when I happened to stray to any distance without my hanger. And I have reason to believe they had some imagination that I was of their own species, which I often assisted myself, by stripping up my sleeves and showing my naked arms and breast in their sight, when my protector was with me. At which times they would approach as near as they durst, and imitate my actions after the manner of monkeys, but ever with great signs of hatred; as a tame jackdaw, with cap and stockings, is always persecuted by the wild ones, when he happens to be got among them. They are prodigiously nimble from their infancy; however, I once caught a young male of three years old, and endeavoured by all marks of tenderness to make it quiet; but the little imp fell a squalling, and scratching, and biting, with such violence, that I was forced to let it go; and it was high time, for a whole troop of old ones came about us at the noise; but finding the cub was safe (for away it ran), and my sorrel nag being by, they durst not venture near us. By what I could discover, the yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all animals, their capacities never reaching higher than to draw or carry burdens. Yet I am of opinion this defect ariseth chiefly from a perverse, restive disposition; for they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit; and, by consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel. It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity. The Houyhnhnms keep the yahoos for present use in huts not far from the house; but the rest are sent abroad to certain fields, where they dig up roots, eat several kinds of herbs, and search about for carrion, or sometimes catch weasels and luhimuh (a sort of wild rat), which they greedily devour. Nature hath taught them to dig deep holes with their nails on the side of a rising ground, wherein they lie by themselves; only the kennels of the females are larger, sufficient to hold two or three cubs. They swim from their infancy like frogs, and are able to continue long under water, where they often take fish, which the females carry home to their young. And upon this occasion I hope the reader will pardon my relating an odd adventure. Being one day abroad with my protector, the sorrel nag, and the weather exceeding hot, I entreated him to let me bathe in a river that was near. He consented, and I immediately stripped myself stark naked, and went down softly into the stream. It happened that a young yahoo, standing behind a bank, saw the whole proceeding, and came running with all speed and leaped into the water within five yards of the place where I bathed. I was never in my life so terribly frighted; the nag was grazing at some distance, not suspecting any harm. I roared as load as I could, and the nag came galloping towards me: whereupon the yahoo leaped upon the opposite bank, and stood gazing and howling all the time I was putting on my clothes. Having lived three years in this country, the reader, I suppose, will expect that I should, like other travellers, give him some account of the manners and customs of its inhabitants, which it was indeed my principal study to learn. As these noble Houyhnhnms are endued by Nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conception or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature; so their grand maxim is to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it. Neither is reason among them a point problematical as with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of a question; but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured by passion and interest. I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and positiveness, in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms. In the like manner, when I used to explain to him our several systems of natural philosophy, he would laugh, that a creature pretending to reason should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjectures, and in things where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use; wherein he agreed entirely with the sentiments of Socrates, as Plato delivers them; which I mention as the highest honour I can do that prince of philosophers. I have often since reflected what destruction such a doctrine would make in the libraries of Europe, and how many paths to fame would be then shut up in the learned world. Friendship and benevolence are the two principal virtues among the Houyhnhnms; and these not confined to particular objects, but universal to the whole race. For a stranger from the remotest parts is equally treated with the nearest neighbour; and, wherever he goes, looks upon himself as at home. They preserve decency and civility in the highest degrees; but are altogether ignorant of ceremony. They have no fondness for their colts or foals; but the care they take in educating them proceedeth entirely from the dictates of reason. And I observed my master to show the same affection to his neighbour's issue that he had for his own. They will have it that nature teaches them to love the whole species, and it is reason only that maketh a distinction of persons where there is a superior degree of virtue. A Houyhnhm family. In their marriages they are exactly careful to choose such colours as will not make any disagreeable mixture. Strength is chiefly valued in the male, and comeliness in the female, to preserve the race from degenerating; for where a female happens to excel in strength, a consort is chosen with regard to comeliness. Courtship, love, presents, jointures, settlements have no place in their thoughts, or terms whereby to express them in their language. The young couple meet merely because it is the determination of their parents and friends: it is what they see done every day, and they look upon it as one of the necessary actions of a reasonable being. And the married pair pass their lives with the same friendship and mutual benevolence that they bear to others of the same species who come in their way, without jealousy, fondness, quarrelling, or discontent. In educating the youth of both sexes, their method is admirable, and highly deserveth our imitation. These are not suffered to taste a grain of oats, except upon certain days, till eighteen years old, nor milk but very rarely; and in summer they graze two hours in the morning, and as many in the evening, which their parents likewise observe; but the servants are not allowed above half that time, and a great part of their grass is brought home, which they eat at the most convenient hours, when they can be best spared from work. Temperance, industry, exercise, and cleanliness are the lessons equally enjoined to the young ones of both sexes; and my master thought it monstrous in us to give the females a different kind of education from the males, except in some articles of domestic management; whereby, as he truly observed, one-half of our natives were good for nothing; and to trust the care of our children to such useless animals, he said, was yet a greater instance of brutality. But the Houyhnhnms train up their youth to strength, speed, and hardiness, by exercising them in running races up and down steep hills, and over hard stony ground: and when they are all in a sweat they are ordered to leap over head and ears into a pond or river. Four times a year the youth of a certain district meet to show their proficiency in running and leaping, and other feats of strength and agility: where the victor is rewarded with a song in his or her praise. On this festival the servants drive a herd of yahoos into the field, laden with hay, and oats, and milk, for a repast to the Houyhnhnms; after which these brutes are immediately driven back again, for fear of being noisome to the assembly. Every fourth year, at the vernal equinox, there is a representative council of the whole nation, which meets in a plain about twenty miles from our house, and continueth about five or six days. Here they inquire into the state and condition of the several districts: Whether they abound or be deficient in hay or oats, or cows, or yahoos? and wherever there is any want (which is but seldom) it is immediately supplied by unanimous consent and contribution. CHAPTER IX. A GRAND DEBATE AT THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS, AND HOW IT WAS DETERMINED. THE LEARNING OF THE HOUYHNHNMS. THEIR BUILDINGS. THEIR MANNER OF BURIALS. THE DEFECTIVENESS OF THEIR LANGUAGE. ONE of these grand assemblies was held in my time, about three months before my departure, whither my master went, as the representative of our district. In this council was resumed their old debate, and, indeed, the only debate that ever happened in their country: whereof my master, after his return, gave me a very particular account. The question to be debated was, whether the yahoos should be exterminated from the face of the earth. One of the members for the affirmative offered several arguments of great strength and weight, alleging, that as the yahoos were the most filthy, noisome, and deformed animal which Nature ever produced, so they were the most restive and indocile, mischievous, and malicious; they would privately suck the milk from the Houyhnhnms' cows, kill and devour their cats, trample down their oats and grass, if they were not continually watched; and commit a thousand other extravagances. He took notice of a general tradition, that yahoos had not been always in their country; but that, many ages ago, two of these brutes appeared together upon a mountain; whether produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or from the ooze and froth of the sea, was never known: that these yahoos grew so numerous as to overrun and infest the whole nation : that the Houyhnhnms, to get rid of this evil, made a general hunting, and at last inclosed the whole herd; and destroying the elder, every Houyhnhnm kept two young ones in a kennel, and brought them to such a degree of tameness, as an animal so savage by nature can be capable of acquiring; using them for draught and carriage: that there seemed to be much truth in this tradition, and that those creatures could not be Yinhniamshy (or aborigines of the land), because of the violent hatred the Houyhnhnms, as well as all other animals, bore them; which, although their evil disposition sufficiently deserved, could never have arrived at so high a degree if they had been aborigines, or else they would have long since been rooted out; that the inhabitants, taking a fancy to use the service of the yahoos, had very imprudently neglected to cultivate the breed of asses, which are a comely animal, easily kept, more tame and orderly, without any offensive smell, strong enough for labour, although they yield to the other in agility of body; and if their braying be no agreeable sound, it is far preferable to the horrible howlings of the yahoos. Several others declared their sentiments to the same purpose, when my master proposed an expedient to the assembly, whereof he had indeed borrowed the hint from me. He approved of the tradition mentioned by the honourable member who spoke before, and affirmed that the two yahoos, said to be the first seen among them, had been driven thither over the sea; that coming to land, and being forsaken by their companions, they retired to the mountains, and degenerating by degrees, became in process of time much more savage than those of their own species in the country from whence these two originals came. The reason of this assertion was that he had now in his possession a certain wonderful yahoo (meaning myself), which most of them had heard of and many of them had seen. He then related to them how he first found me: That my body was all covered with an artificial composure of the skins and hairs of other animals; that I spoke in a language of my own, and had thoroughly learned theirs; that I had related to him the accidents which brought me thither; that when he saw me without my covering I was an exact yahoo in every part, only of a whiter colour, less hairy, and with shorter claws. He added how I had endeavoured to persuade him that in my own and other countries the yahoos acted as the governing rational animal, and held the Houyhnhnms in servitude; that he observed in me all the qualities of a yahoo, only a little more civilised by some tincture of reason, which, however, was in a degree as far inferior to the Houyhnhnm race as the yahoos of their country were to me. He concluded by exhorting the Houyhnhnms to cultivate the breed of asses, which, as they are in all respects more valuable brutes, so they have this advantage, to be fit for service at five years old, which the others are not till twelve. This was all my master thought fit to tell me at that time of what passed in the grand council. But he was pleased to conceal one particular which related personally to myself, whereof I soon felt the unhappy effect, as the reader will know in its proper place, and from whence I date all the succeeding misfortunes of my life. The Houyhnhnms have no letters, and consequently their knowledge and simple, are not inconvenient, but well contrived to defend them from all injuries of cold and heat. They have a kind of tree, which, at forty years old, loosens at the root, and falls with the first storm; it grows very straight, and being pointed like stakes, with a sharp stone (for the Houyhnhnms know not the use of iron), they stick them erect in the ground about ten inches asunder, and then weave in oat straw or sometimes wattles, betwixt them. The roof is made after the same manner, and so are the doors. The Houyhnhnms use the hollow part between the pastern and the hoof of their fore-feet as we do our hands, and this with greater dexterity than I could at first imagine. I have seen a white mare of our family thread a needle (which I lent her on purpose) with that joint. They milk their cows, reap their oats, and do all the work which requires hands in the same manner. They have a kind of hard flints, which, by grinding against other stones, they form into instruments, that serve instead of wedges, axes, and hammers. With tools made of these flints they likewise cut their hay and reap their oats, which they grow naturally in several fields: the yahoos draw home the sheaves in carriages, and the servants tread them in certain covered huts, to get out the grain, which is kept in stores. They make a rude kind of earthen and wooden vessels, and bake the former in the sun. If they can avoid casualties, they die only of old age, and are buried in the obscurest places that can be found, their friends and relations expressing neither joy nor grief at their departure; nor does the dying person discover the least regret that he is leaving the world, any more than if he were upon returning home from a visit to one of his neighbours. I remember my master having once made an appointment with a friend and his family to come to his house upon some affair of import is all traditional. But there happening few events of any moment among a people so well united, naturally disposed to every virtue, wholly governed by reason, and cut off from all commerce with other nations, the historical part is easily preserved without burdening their memories. I have already observed that they are subject to no diseases, and therefore can have no need of physicians. However, they have excellent medicines, composed of herbs, to cure accidental bruises and cuts in the pastern or frog of the foot by sharp stones, as well as other maims and hurts in the several parts of the body. They calculate the year by the revolution of the sun and moon, but use no subdivisions into weeks. They are well enough acquainted with the motions of those two luminaries, and understand the nature of eclipses; and this is the utmost progress of their astronomy. In poetry they must be allowed to excel all other mortals; wherein the justness of their similes, and the minuteness as well as exactness of their descriptions, are indeed inimitable. Their verses abound very much in both of these; and usually contain either some exalted notions of friendship and benevolence, or the praises of those who were victors races and other bodily exercises. Their buildings, although very rude ance; on the day fixed the mistress and her two children came very late; she made two excuses, first for her husband, who, as she said, happened that very morning to lhnuwnh. The word is strongly expressive in their language, but not easily rendered into English; it signifies to retire to his first mother. Her excuse for not coming sooner was, that her husband dying late in the morning, she was a good while consulting her servants about a convenient place where his body should be laid; and I observed she behaved herself at our house as cheerfully as the rest; she died about three months after. They live generally to seventy, or seventy-five years, very seldom to fourscore some weeks before their death they feel a gradual decay, but without pain. During this time they are much visited by their friends, because they cannot go abroad with their usual ease and satisfaction. However, about ten days before their death, which they seldom fail in computing, they return the visits that have been made them by those who are nearest in the neighbourhood, being carried in a convenient sledge drawn by yahoos; which vehicle they use, not only upon this occasion, but when they grow old, upon long journeys, or when they are lamed by any accident. And, therefore, when the dying Houyhnhnms return those visits, they take a solemn leave of their friends, as if they were going to some remote part of the country, where they designed to pass the rest of their lives. I know not whether it may be worth observing, that the Houyhnhnms have no word in their language to express anything that is evil, except what they borrow from the deformities or ill qualities of the yahoos. Thus they denote the folly of a servant, an omission of a child, a stone that cuts their feet, a continuance of foul or unseasonable weather, and the like, by adding to each the epithet of yahoo. For instance, hhnm yahoo, whnaholm yahoo, ynlhmndwihlma yahoo, and an ill-contrived house, ynholmhnmrohlnw yahoo. I could with great pleasure enlarge farther upon the manners and virtues of this excellent people; but intending in a short time to publish a volume by itself expressly upon that subject, I refer the reader thither; and, in the meantime, proceed to relate my own sad catastrophe. |