at
the giant builders had to flee before them. Some escaped across great
bridges which, with the help of their gods, they had suspended in the air
from bank to bank of a wide river parting the island from the mainland,
but many could do no better than mount some of the buildings that they had
reared, and there, in these inaccessible altitudes, they dwell to-day,
still piling stone upon stone. Whether they do this in obedience to their
instinct as builders, or in hope to escape by way of the heavens, I had
not the means to learn, being ignorant of the pigmy tongue and in
continual fear of the crowds that followed me.

"You can see the giants toiling away up there in the sky, laying in place
the enormous beams and stones which none but they could handle. They look
no bigger than beetles, but you know that they are many _sprugas_ in
stature, and you shudder to think what would ensue if one should lose his
footing. Fancy that great bulk whirling down to earth from so dizzy an
altitude!...

"May birds ever sing above your grave.

"JOQUOLK WAK MGAPY."

By my new friend, Tgnagogu, I was presented to the King, a most
enlightened monarch, who not only reigned over, but ruled absolutely, the
most highly civilized people in the world. He received me with gracious
hospitality, quartered me in the palace of his Prime Minister, gave me for
wives the three daughters of his Lord Chamberlain, and provided me with an
ample income from the public revenues. Within a year I had made a fair
acquaintance with the Batrugian language, and was appointed royal
interpreter, with a princely salary, although no one speaking any other
tongue, myself and two native professors of rhetoric excepted, had ever
been seen in the kingdom.

One day I heard a great tumult in the street, and going to a window saw,
in a public square opposite, a crowd of persons surrounding some high
officials who were engaged in cutting off a man's head. Just before the
executioner delivered the fatal stroke, the victim was asked if he had
anything to say. He explained with earnestness that the deed for which he
was about to suffer had been inspired and commanded by a brass-headed cow
and four bushels of nightingales' eggs!

"Hold! hold!" I shouted in Batrugian, leaping from the window and forcing
a way through the throng; "the man is obviously insane!"

"Friend," said a man in a long blue robe, gently restraining me, "it is
not proper for you to interrupt these high pr