ave to see him long. We're going
to Porsslania in a fortnight, you and I, and you'll have a chance to
turn the world upside down there."

CHAPTER XI

A Dinner Party at Gin-Sin

[Illustration]

During the past months great events had taken place in the ancient
empire of Porsslania. Many years earlier the various churches had sent
missionaries to that benighted land to reclaim its inhabitants from
barbarism and heathenism. These emissaries were not received with the
enthusiastic gratitude which they deserved, and some of the Porsslanese
had the impudence to assert that they were a civilized people when
their new teachers had been naked savages. They proved their barbarism,
however, by indulging in the most unreasonable prejudices against a
foreign religion, and when cornered in argument they would say to the
missionaries, "How would you like us to convert your people to our
religion?" an answer so illogical that it demonstrates either their bad
faith or the low development of their intellects. The missionaries of
some of the sects, by the help of their governments, gradually obtained
a good deal of land and at the same time a certain degree of civil
jurisdiction. The foreign governments, wishing to bless the natives
with temporal as well as celestial advantages, followed up the
missionary pioneers with traders in cheap goods, rum, opium, and
fire-arms, and finally endeavored to introduce their own machinery and
factory system, which had already at home raised all the laboring
classes to affluence, put an end to poverty, and realized the dream of
the prophets of old. The Porsslanese resolutely resisted all these
benevolent enterprises and doggedly expressed their preference for
their ancient customs. In order to overcome this unreasonable
opposition and assure the welfare of the people, the various Powers
from time to time seized the great ports of the Empire. The fertile
diplomacy of the courts found sufficient grounds for this. Most
frequently the pretext was an attack upon a missionary or even a case
of cold-blooded murder, and it became a proverb among the Porsslanese
that it takes a province to bury a missionary. Finally, all the harbors
of the Empire were in the hands of foreigners, who used this
advantageous position to confer blessings thick and fast upon the
reluctant population, who richly deserved, as a punishment, to be left
to themselves. At last a revolutiona