ve such persons put under a
press, as the Portuguese do with the negroes of Guinea, and have all the
juice of their knowledge well squeezed out of them, so that they might
no more cheat the world with their scraps of broken Greek and Latin.

_Scip._ Now indeed, Berganza, you may bite your tongue, and I may do
the same; for we do nothing but rail in every word.

_Berg._ Ay, but I am not bound to do as I have heard that one Charondas,
a Tyrian, did, who published a law that no one should enter the national
assembly in arms, on pain of death. Forgetting this, he one day entered
the assembly girt with a sword; the fact was pointed out to him, and, on
the instant, he drew his sword, plunged it into his body, and thus he
was the first who made the law, broke it, and suffered its penalty. But
I made no law; all I did was to promise that I would bite my tongue, if
I chanced to utter an acrimonious word; but things are not so strictly
managed in these times as in those of the ancients. To-day a law is
made, and to-morrow it is broken, and perhaps it is fit it should be so.
To-day a man promises to abandon his fault, and to-morrow he falls into
a greater. It is one thing to extol discipline, and another to inflict
it on one's self; and indeed there is a wide difference between saying
and doing. The devil may bite himself, not I; nor have I a mind to
perform heroic acts of self-denial here on this mat, where there are no
witnesses to commend my honourable determination.

_Scip._ In that case, Berganza, were you a man you would be a hypocrite,
and all your acts would be fictitious and false, though covered with the
cloak of virtue, and done only that men might praise you, like the acts
of all hypocrites.

_Berg._ I don't know what I should do if I were a man; but what I do
know is that at present I shall not bite my tongue, having so many
things yet to tell, and not knowing how or when I shall be able to
finish them; but rather fearing that when the sun rises we shall be left
groping without the power of speech.

_Scip._ Heaven forbid it! Go on with your story, and do not run off the
road into needless digressions; in that way only you will come soon to
the end of it, however long it may be.

_Berg._ I say, then, that having seen the thievery, impudence, and
shameful conduct of the negroes, I determined, like a good servant, to
put an end to their doings, if possible, and I succeeded completely in
my purpose. The negress, as