ered into the caldron. Besides, as the Devil wanted some
amusement, and had not seen an account of the transactions of this famous
council, he had all the books brought from it laid before him, and split
his sides almost {218} with laughing, whilst he was reading the speeches
and decrees of so many of his old friends and acquaintances. All this while
the witches were depositing their loads in the great caldron. There were
books from the Dalai Lama, and from China: there were books from the
Hindoos, and tallies from the Caffres: there were paintings from Mexico,
and rocks of hieroglyphics from Egypt: the last country supplied besides
the swathings of two thousand mummies, and four-fifths of the famed library
of Alexandria. Bubble! bubble! toil and trouble! never was a day of more
labor and anxiety; and if our good master had but flung in the Greek books
at the proper time, they would have made a complete job of it. He was a
little too impatient: as the caldron frothed up, he skimmed it off with a
great ladle, and filled some thousands of our wind-bags with the froth,
which the English with great joy carried back to their own country. These
bags were sent to every district: the chiefs first took their fill, and
then the common people; hence they now speak a language which no foreigner
can understand, unless he has learned half a dozen other languages; and the
poor people, not one in ten, understand a third part of what is said to
them. The hissing, however, they have not entirely got rid of, and every
seven years, when the Devil, according to agreement, pays them a visit,
they entertain him at their common halls and county meetings with their
original language.

"The good-natured old hag told me several other circumstances, relative to
this curious transaction, which, as there is an Englishman in company, it
will be prudent to pass over in silence: but I cannot help mentioning one
thing which she told me as a very great secret. You know, says she to me,
that the English have more religions among them than any other nation in
Europe, and that there is more teaching and sermonizing with them than in
any other country. The fact is this; it matters not who gets up to teach
them, the hard words of the Greek were not sufficiently {219} boiled, and
whenever they get into a sentence, the poor people's brains are turned, and
they know no more what the preacher is talking about, than if he harangued
them in Arabic. Take my word for i