s for their grand-children; but on inquiry
I found these were not yet born, and in many cases there was little
chance that they ever would. The truth, on a close examination,
proved to be, that the true genuine heapers really heaped for
themselves; that it was in fact neither for friend nor child, but to
gratify an inordinate appetite of their own. Nor was I much
surprised after this to see these yellow hoards at length _canker,
and the rust of them become a witness against the hoarders, and eat
their flesh as it were fire_.

Many, however, who had set out with a high heap of their father's
raising, before they had got one third of their journey, had
scarcely a single piece left. As I was wondering what had caused
these enormous piles to vanish in so short a time, I spied scattered
up and down the country all sorts of odd inventions, for some or
other of which the vain possessors of the great heaps of clay had
trucked and bartered them away in fewer hours than their ancestors
had spent years in getting them together. O what a strange
unaccountable medley it was! and what was ridiculous enough, I
observed that the greatest quantity of the clay was always exchanged
for things that were of no use that I could discover, owing I
suppose to my ignorance of the manners of the country.

In one place I saw large heaps exhausted, in order to set two idle
pampered horses a running; but the worst of the joke was, the horses
did not run to fetch or carry any thing, and of course were of no
kind of use, but merely to let the gazers see which could run
fastest. Now, this gift of swiftness, exercised to no useful
purpose, was only one out of many instances, I observed, of talents
employed to no end. In another place I saw whole piles of the clay
spent to maintain long ranges of buildings full of dogs, on
provisions which would have nicely fattened some thousands of
pilgrims, who sadly wanted fattening, and whose ragged tenements
were out at elbows, for want of a little help to repair them. Some
of the piles were regularly pulled down once in seven years, in
order to corrupt certain needy pilgrims to belie their consciences,
by doing that for a bribe which they were bound to do from
principle. Others were spent in playing with white stiff bits of
paper, painted over with red and black spots, in which I thought
there must be some conjuring, because the very touch of these
painted pasteboards made the heaps fly from one to another, and