anding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting
almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally
betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this
delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with
sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive
faculty of imitation?

Reader, in your pride of Caucasian blood, you may think it incredible
that such doubts should have been entertained concerning a man whose
father is from one of the best families in Holland, whose mother is
descended from, good English stock, and who himself exhibits sufficient
intelligence to write this narrative; but nevertheless such doubts were
actually entertained by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the
island. Not only did the members of their Society of Natural History
become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole
population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with
great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of
Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment
of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no
over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated,
all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence
concerning the wonderful Batrachian that was said to have come ashore on
the eastern side of their island.

But alas! even in this well-governed and happy community, not every
man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from
prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only
a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I
was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality
with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the
accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position,
finally confessed the crime, by acknowledging that they thought that I
was at least entitled to all the rights of their race. Here was the
beginning of a feud which presently waxed as hot as that between the
Big-Endians and the Little-Endians of Liliput.

I have no doubt in my own mind that the temper displayed in this
controversy sprang partly from causes which had been in operation for
many years before my visit. Somewhere about the middle of the last
century, (I am speaking now of terrestrial dates, translating their long
years and