us beyond the dreams of treason; that only in a nation of rogues
and idiots could it have a moment's toleration.'

"He was about to reply, but cutting his throat to intimate that the
hearing was at an end, I withdrew from the Hall of Audience, as under
similar circumstances I am about to do now."

I withdrew first by way of a window, and after a terrible journey of six
years in the Dolorous Mountains and on the Desert of Despair came to the
western coast. Here I built a ship and after a long voyage landed on one
of the islands constituting the Kingdom of Tortirra.

THE KINGDOM OF TORTIRRA

Of this unknown country and its inhabitants I have written a large volume
which nothing but the obstinacy of publishers has kept from the world, and
which I trust will yet see the light. Naturally, I do not wish to publish
at this time anything that will sate public curiosity, and this brief
sketch will consist of such parts only of the work as I think can best be
presented in advance without abating interest in what is to follow when
Heaven shall have put it into the hearts of publishers to square their
conduct with their interests. I must, however, frankly confess that my
choice has been partly determined by other considerations. I offer here
those parts of my narrative which I conceive to be the least
credible--those which deal with the most monstrous and astounding follies
of a strange people. Their ceremony of marriage by decapitation; their
custom of facing to the rear when riding on horseback; their practice of
walking on their hands in all ceremonial processions; their selection of
the blind for military command; their pig-worship--these and many other
comparatively natural particulars of their religious, political,
intellectual and social life I reserve for treatment in the great work for
which I shall soon ask public favor and acceptance.

In Tortirran politics, as in Tamtonian, the population is always divided
into two, and sometimes three or four "parties," each having a "policy"
and each conscientiously believing the policy of the other, or others,
erroneous and destructive. In so far as these various and varying policies
can be seen to have any relation whatever to practical affairs they can be
seen also to be the result of purely selfish considerations. The
self-deluded people flatter themselves that their elections are contests
of principles, whereas they are only struggles of interests. They are very
fond of the