The Author’s Arrival in Quama.

Meanwhile a large multitude of people collected around me from all parts. They requested me to speak; but as I did not understand their language I could not answer them. They repeated often the word Dank, Dank, and supposing them to be Germans, I addressed them in this language, then in Danish, and finally in Latin; but they signified to me, by shaking their heads, that these languages were unknown to them. I tried at last to declare myself in the subterranean tongues, namely, in Nazaric and Martinianic; but it was in vain.

After having addressed each other, thus incomprehensibly for a long time, I was carried to a small hut, formed of wickers intricately twisted. In this hut were neither chairs nor tables; these people seat themselves on the ground to eat; instead of beds they spread straw on the earthy floor, upon which they throw themselves indiscriminately at night. Their food is milk, cheese, barley-bread and meat, which they rudely broil on the coals; for they do not understand cooking. Thus I lived with them, like a dog, until I learned so much of their language, that I could speak with them and assist them a little in their ignorance. The simplest rules of living that I prepared for them were considered as divine commands. My fame soon spread abroad, and all the villages around sent forth crowds to a teacher, who, they believed, had been sent to them from heaven. I heard even, that some had commenced a new chronology from the date of my arrival. All this pleased me only so much the more, as formerly in Nazar I had been abused for my imprudence and wavering judgment, and in Martinia despised and commiserated for my ignorance. True, indeed, is the old proverb; that among the blind the one-eyed rules. I had now come to a land, where with little understanding, I could raise myself to the highest dignities. There were here the best opportunities to employ my talents, since this fruitful land produced in abundance whatever subserved for pleasure and luxury as well as usefulness and comfort. The inhabitants were not indocile nor were they wanting in conception; but since they had been blessed with no light without themselves, they groped in the thickest darkness. When I told them of my birth, my native land, of the shipwreck I had suffered, and of other occurrences in my voyages, not one would credit me. They thought rather that I was an inhabitant of the sun, and had come down to enlighten them, wherefore they called me Pikil-Su, that is the sun’s ambassador. For their religion, they believed in and acknowledged a God, but cared not at all to prove his existence. They thought it enough for them that their forefathers had believed the same; and this blind submission to time-honored formul? was their simple and sole theology. Of the moral law, they were ignorant of all commandments save this: Do not unto others that which you would not have others do unto you. They had no laws; the will of the emperor was their only rule. Of chronology they had but a slight conception; their years were determined by the eclipses of the sun by Nazar’s intervention. Were one asked his age, he would answer: that he had attained so many eclipses. Their knowledge of natural science too, was very unsatisfactory and unreasonable; they believed the sun to be a plate of gold, and the planet Nazar, a cheese. Their property consisted in hogs, which, after marking, they drove into the woods: the wealth of each was determined by the number of his swine.

I applied myself, with all the fervor imaginable, to refine and enlighten this rude, yet promising people, so that shortly I came to be regarded among them as a saint; their trust in my wisdom was so great, that they thought nothing impossible with me. Therefore, when overtaken by misfortune, they would hasten to my hut and pray for my assistance. Once I found a peasant on his knees before my door, weeping, and bitterly complaining over the unfruitfulness of his trees, and beseeching me to use my authority, that his trees should bear fruit to him abundantly, as of old.

I had heard that this whole country was governed by a Regent, whose residence, or palace, at that time, was about eight days’ travel from the town where I lived. I say at that time, because the court dwelt, not in substantial, fixed houses, but in tents; and the residence was moved at pleasure from one province to another. The ruler at that period was an old man, named Casba, which signifies............