d want
of decency, and we left them without waiting to see the result of
the contest.

In returning to our lodgings, the Brahmin took me along a quarter of the
town in which I had never before been. In a little while we came to a
lofty building, before the gate of which a great crowd were assembled.
"This," said my companion, "is one of the courts of justice." Anxious to
see their modes of proceeding in court, I pushed through the crowd,
followed by the Brahmin, and on entering the building, found myself in a
spacious amphitheatre, in the middle of which I beheld, with surprise,
several men engaged, hand to hand, in single combat. On asking an
explanation of my friend, he informed me that these contests were
favourite modes of settling private disputes in Morosofia: that the
prize-fighters I saw, hired themselves to any one who conceived himself
injured in person, character, or property. "It seems a strange mode of
settling legal disputes," I remarked, "which determines a question in
favour of a party, according to the strength and wind of his champion."

"Nor is that all," said the Brahmin, "as the judges assign the victory
according to certain rules and precedents, the reasons of which are
known only to themselves, if known at all, and which are often
sufficiently whimsical--as sometimes a small scratch in the head avails
more than a disabling blow in the body. The blows too, must be given in
the right time, as well as in the right place, or they pass for nothing.
In short, of all those spectators who are present to witness the powers
and address of the prize-fighters, not one in a hundred can tell who has
gained the victory, until the judges have proclaimed it."

"I presume," said I, "that the champions who thus expose their persons
and lives in the cause of another, are Glonglims?"

"There," said he, "you are altogether mistaken. In the first place, the
prize-fighters seldom sustain serious injury. Their weapons do not
endanger life; and as each one knows that his adversary is merely
following his vocation, they often fight without animosity. After the
contest is over, you may commonly see the combatants walking and talking
very sociably together: but as this circumstance makes them a little
suspected by the public, they affect the greater rage when in conflict,
and occasionally quarrel and fight in downright earnest. No," he
continued, "I am told it is a very rare thing to see one of these
prize-fighters who is