length
suspected that a nation might fare better if its race of fruiterers were
overseen and supported by the State, if their skill and their market
were alike secured. Although, no longer being tempted to suffer from a
surfeit, the health of the Islanders had consequently recovered, this
was, after all, but a negative blessing, and they sadly missed a luxury
once so reasonable and so refreshing. They sighed for an established
fruit and a protected race of cultivators. But the stout soldier was so
sworn an enemy to any Government Fruit, and so decided an admirer of the
least delightful, that the people, having no desire of being forced to
cat crab-apples, only longed for more delicious food in silence.

At length the stout soldier died, and on the night of his death the
sword which had so long supported the pretended Government snapped in
twain. No arrangement existed for carrying on the administration of
affairs. The master-mind was gone, without having imported the secret of
conversing with the golden head to any successor. The people assembled
in agitated crowds. Each knew his neighbour's thoughts without their
being declared. All smacked their lips, and a cry for pine-apples rent
the skies.

At this moment the Aboriginal Inhabitant appeared, and announced that
in examining the old Hall of Audience, which had been long locked up,
he had discovered in a corner, where they had been flung by the stout
soldier when he stole away the head, the remaining portions of the
Statue; that they were quite uninjured, and that on fixing the head once
more upon them, and winding up the works, he was delighted to find that
this great work of his ancestor, under whose superintendence the nation
had so flourished, resumed all its ancient functions. The people were
in a state of mind for a miracle, and they hailed the joyful wonder with
shouts of triumph. The State was placed under the provisional care of
the Aboriginal. All arrangements for its superintendence were left
to his discretion, and its advice was instantly to be taken upon that
subject which at present was nearest the people's hearts.

But that subject was encompassed with difficulties. Pine-apples could
only be again procured by an application to the Prince of the World,
whose connection they had rejected, and by an introduction into
the island of those foreign agents, who, now convinced that the
Vraibleusians could not exist without their presence, would be more
arroga