not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue, for the good of mankind.

My side-saddle is the first that was ever seen in this part of the world, and is gazed at with as much wonder as the ship of Columbus in the first discovery of America.

Our vulgar notion, that they don't own women to have any souls, is a mistake. 'Tis true they say they are not of so elevated a kind, and therefore must not hope to be admitted into the paradise appointed for the men, who are to be entertained by celestial beauties. But there is a place of happiness destined for the souls of the inferior order, where all good women are to be in eternal bliss. Many of them are very superstitious, and will not remain widows ten days, for fear of dying in the reprobate state of a useless creature. But those that like their liberty, and are not slaves to their religion, content themselves with marrying when they are afraid of dying. This paradise will be a separate place from that of their husbands; but I fancy the most part of them won't like it the worse for that, and that the regret of this separation will not render their paradise the less agreeable.

I am much pleased with the Turkish manners; a people, though ignorant, yet in my judgment extremely polite. A gallant convicted of having debauched a married woman is regarded as a pernicious being, and held in the same abhorrence as a prostitute with us. He is certain of never making his fortune, and they would deem it scandalous to confer any considerable employment on a man suspected of having committed such enormous injustice.

When the pachas travel, those oppressors are not content with eating all that is to be eaten belonging to the peasants; after they have crammed themselves and their numerous retinue, they have the impudence to exact what they call teeth-money, a contribution for the use of their teeth, worn with doing them the honor of devouring their meat. This is literally and exactly true, however extravagant it may seem; and such is the natural corruption of a military government, their religion not allowing of this barbarity, any more than ours does.

excelled us in strength and swiftness; but the common race of horses had not good fortune; being kept by farmers and carriers, and mean people who put them to great labor, and fed them worse. I described, as well as I could, our way of riding; the shape and use of a bridle, a saddle, a spur, and a whip; of harness, shoes, and wheels. I added, "that our horses were trained up, from three or four years old, to the several uses we intended them for; and if any of them proved intolerably vicious, they were employed for carriages; that they were severely beaten, while they were young, for any mischievous tricks; that the males, designed for the common use of riding or draught, were generally castrated about two years after their birth, to take down their spirits, and make them more tame and gentle." But it is impossible to express his noble resentment at our savage treatment of the Houyhnhnm race; particularly after I had explained our manner and use, to hinder them from propagating their kind, and to render them more servile. He asked me "what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to War with another?" I answered, they were innumerable; but I should mention only a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern. Sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamor of the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives; for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine ;* whether whistling be a vice or a virtue ; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire; what is the best co lor for a coat, whether black, white, rea or grey; and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

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* Transubstantiation. † Church Music. ‡ Kissing a cross. The color and make of sacred vestments, and different orders of popish ecclesiastics. H.

Sometimes the quarrel between two princes, is to decide which of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretend to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrels with another for fear the other should quarrel him. Sometimes a war is entered upon, because the enemy is too strong; and sometimes, because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbors want the things which we have, or have the things which we want, and we both fight, till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and compact, If a prince sends us forces into a nation, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honorable, and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance of another, to secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out the invader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood or marriage, is a frequent cause of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater their disposition to quarrel: poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud: and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most honorable of all others; because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill, in cold blood, as many of his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.

I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, mus kets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dy ing groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcasses, left for food to dogs

and wolves, and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning and destroying. And to set forth the valor of my own dear countrymen, I assured him, that I had seen them blow up a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship; and beheld the dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of the spectators.

I was going on to more particulars, when my master commanded me silence. He said "whoever understood the nature of Yahoos, might easily believe it possible for so vile an animal to be capable of every action I had named, if their strength and cunning equalled their malice. But as my discourse had increased his abhorrence of the whole species, so he found it gave him a disturbance in his mind, to which he was wholly a stranger before. He thought his ears, being used to such abominable words, might by degrees admit them with less detestation: that although he hated the Yahoos of this country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh (a bird of prey) for its cruelty, or a sharp stone for cutting his hoof. But, when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded, lest the corruption of that faculty, might be worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore confident, that instead of reason, we were only possessed of some quality, fitted to increase our natural vices; us the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill-shaped body, not only larger but more distorted."

He desired to be further satisfied what I meant by Law, and the dispensers thereof, according to the present prac tice in my own country: because he thought Nature and reason were sufficient guides for a reasonable animal, as we pretended to be, in showing us what he ought to do, and what to avoid.

I said, there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbor has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire an