ly invited
them to supper.

While waiting they were shown the city, and saw the public edifices
raised as high as the clouds, the market places ornamented with a
thousand columns, the fountains of spring water, those of rose water,
those of liqueurs drawn from sugar-cane, incessantly flowing into the
great squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stone, which
gave off a delicious fragrancy like that of cloves and cinnamon. Candide
asked to see the court of justice, the parliament. They told him they
had none, and that they were strangers to lawsuits. He asked if they had
any prisons, and they answered no. But what surprised him most and gave
him the greatest pleasure was the palace of sciences, where he saw a
gallery two thousand feet long, and filled with instruments employed in
mathematics and physics.

After rambling about the city the whole afternoon, and seeing but a
thousandth part of it, they were reconducted to the royal palace, where
Candide sat down to table with his Majesty, his valet Cacambo, and
several ladies. Never was there a better entertainment, and never was
more wit shown at a table than that which fell from his Majesty. Cacambo
explained the King's _bon-mots_ to Candide, and notwithstanding they
were translated they still appeared to be _bon-mots_. Of all the things
that surprised Candide this was not the least.

They spent a month in this hospitable place. Candide frequently said to
Cacambo:

"I own, my friend, once more that the castle where I was born is nothing
in comparison with this; but, after all, Miss Cunegonde is not here, and
you have, without doubt, some mistress in Europe. If we abide here we
shall only be upon a footing with the rest, whereas, if we return to our
old world, only with twelve sheep laden with the pebbles of El Dorado,
we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe. We shall have no more
Inquisitors to fear, and we may easily recover Miss Cunegonde."

This speech was agreeable to Cacambo; mankind are so fond of roving, of
making a figure in their own country, and of boasting of what they have
seen in their travels, that the two happy ones resolved to be no longer
so, but to ask his Majesty's leave to quit the country.

"You are foolish," said the King. "I am sensible that my kingdom is but
a small place, but when a person is comfortably settled in any part he
should abide there. I have not the right to detain strangers. It is a
tyranny which neither our m