LETTER X

Concerning the authority of this high official, Sir Philip.
The side-slipperyness of barbarian etiquette. The hurl-
headlong sportiveness and that achieving its end by means of
curved mallets.

VENERATED SIRE,--If this person's memory is accurately poised on the
detail, he was compelled to abandon his former letter (when on the point
of describing the customs of these outer places), in order to take part
in a philosophical discussion with some of the venerable sages of the
neighbourhood.

Resuming the narration where it had reached this remote province of
the Empire, it is a suitable opportunity to explain that this same
Sir Philip is here greeted on every side with marks of deferential
submission, and is undoubtedly an official of high button, for whenever
the inclination seizes him he causes prisoners to be sought out, and
then proceeds to administer justice impartially upon them. In the case
of the wealthy and those who have face to lose, the matter is generally
arranged, to his profit and to the satisfaction of all, by the payment
of an adequate sum of money, after the invariable custom of our own
mandarincy. When this incentive to leniency is absent it is usual to
condemn the captive to imprisonment in a cell (it is denied officially,
but there is no reason to doubt that a large earthenware vessel is
occasionally used for this purpose,) for varying periods, though it is
notorious that in the case of the very necessitous they are sometimes
set freely at liberty, and those who took them publicly reprimanded for
accusing persons from whose condition on possible profit could arise.
This confinement is seldom inflicted for a longer period than seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one days (these being lucky numbers,) except in the
case of those who have been held guilty of ensnaring certain birds and
beasts which appear to be regarded as sacred, for they have their duly
appointed attendants who wear a garb and are trained in the dexterous
use of arms, lurking with loaded weapons in secret places to catch the
unwary, both by night and day. Upheld by the high nature of their office
these persons shrink from no encounter and even suffer themselves to be
killed with resolute unconcern; but when successful they are not denied
an efficient triumph, for it is admitted that those whom they capture
are marked men from that time (doubtless being branded upon the body
with the name of their captor), and no futur