back his bigoted worshippers to his close-stool, to
see, smell, taste, philosophize, and examine what kind of divinity they
could pick out of his sir-reverence.

Chapter 4.LXI.

How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn.

Those gastrolatrous hobgoblins being withdrawn, Pantagruel carefully minded
the famous master of arts, Gaster. You know that, by the institution of
nature, bread has been assigned him for provision and food; and that, as an
addition to this blessing, he should never want the means to get bread.

Accordingly, from the beginning he invented the smith's art, and husbandry
to manure the ground, that it might yield him corn; he invented arms and
the art of war to defend corn; physic and astronomy, with other parts of
mathematics which might be useful to keep corn a great number of years in
safety from the injuries of the air, beasts, robbers, and purloiners; he
invented water, wind, and handmills, and a thousand other engines to grind
corn and to turn it into meal; leaven to make the dough ferment, and the
use of salt to give it a savour; for he knew that nothing bred more
diseases than heavy, unleavened, unsavoury bread.

He found a way to get fire to bake it; hour-glasses, dials, and clocks to
mark the time of its baking; and as some countries wanted corn, he
contrived means to convey some out of one country into another.

He had the wit to pimp for asses and mares, animals of different species,
that they might copulate for the generation of a third, which we call
mules, more strong and fit for hard service than the other two. He
invented carts and waggons to draw him along with greater ease; and as seas
and rivers hindered his progress, he devised boats, galleys, and ships (to
the astonishment of the elements) to waft him over to barbarous, unknown,
and far distant nations, thence to bring, or thither to carry corn.

Besides, seeing that when he had tilled the ground, some years the corn
perished in it for want of rain in due season, in others rotted or was
drowned by its excess, sometimes spoiled by hail, eat by worms in the ear,
or beaten down by storms, and so his stock was destroyed on the ground; we
were told that ever since the days of yore he has found out a way to
conjure the rain down from heaven only with cutting certain grass, common
enough in the field, yet known to very few, some of which was then shown
us. I took it to be the same as the plant, one of whose boughs being