am made of apples and yellow cabbage leaves, succumbed to
the inevitable, and resigned themselves to a diet of roast beef and
mutton, with all the usual adjuncts of a modern dinner-table.

One would have thought that the dance they had been led by the old
prophet, and that still madder dance which the Professor of botany had
gravely, but as I believe insidiously, proposed to lead them, would have
made the Erewhonians for a long time suspicious of prophets whether they
professed to have communications with an unseen power or no; but so
engrained in the human heart is the desire to believe that some people
really do know what they say they know, and can thus save them from the
trouble of thinking for themselves, that in a short time would-be
philosophers and faddists became more powerful than ever, and gradually
led their countrymen to accept all those absurd views of life, some
account of which I have given in my earlier chapters. Indeed I can see
no hope for the Erewhonians till they have got to understand that reason
uncorrected by instinct is as bad as instinct uncorrected by reason.

CHAPTER XXVIII: ESCAPE

Though busily engaged in translating the extracts given in the last five
chapters, I was also laying matters in train for my escape with Arowhena.
And indeed it was high time, for I received an intimation from one of the
cashiers of the Musical Banks, that I was to be prosecuted in a criminal
court ostensibly for measles, but really for having owned a watch, and
attempted the reintroduction of machinery.

I asked why measles? and was told that there was a fear lest extenuating
circumstances should prevent a jury from convicting me, if I were
indicted for typhus or small-pox, but that a verdict would probably be
obtained for measles, a disease which could be sufficiently punished in a
person of my age. I was given to understand that unless some unexpected
change should come over the mind of his Majesty, I might expect the blow
to be struck within a very few days.

My plan was this--that Arowhena and I should escape in a balloon
together. I fear that the reader will disbelieve this part of my story,
yet in no other have I endeavoured to adhere more conscientiously to
facts, and can only throw myself upon his charity.

I had already gained the ear of the Queen, and had so worked upon her
curiosity that she promised to get leave for me to have a balloon made
and inflated; I pointed out to her that no c