e defence is availing. The
third punishment, that of torture, is reserved for a class of solitary
mendicants who travel from place to place, doubtless spreading the germs
of an inflammatory doctrine of rebellion, for, owing to my own degraded
obtuseness, the actual nature of their crimes could never be made clear
to me. Of the tortures employed that known in their language as the
"bath" (for which we have no real equivalent,) is the most dreaded, and
this person has himself beheld men of gigantic proportions, whose bodies
bore the stain of a voluntary endurance to every privation, abandon
themselves to a most ignoble despair upon hearing the ill-destined word.
Unquestionably the infliction is closely connected with our own ordeal
of boiling water, but from other indications it is only reasonable to
admit that there is an added ingredient, of which we probably have no
knowledge, whereby the effect is enhanced in every degree, and the outer
surface of the victim rendered more vulnerable. There is also another
and milder form of torture, known as the "task", consisting either of
sharp-edged stones being broken upon the body, or else the body broken
upon sharp-edged stones, but precisely which is the official etiquette
of the case this person's insatiable passion for accuracy and his
short-sighted limitations among the more technical outlines of the
language, prevent him from stating definitely.

Let it here be openly confessed that the intricately-arranged titles
used among these islanders, and the widely-varying dignities which they
convey, have never ceased to embarrass my greetings on all occasions,
and even yet, when a more crystal insight into their strangely illogical
manners enables me not only to understand them clearly myself, but
also to expound their significance to others, a necessary reticence is
blended with my most profuse cordiality, and my salutations to one whom
I am for the first time encountering are now so irreproachably balanced,
that I can imperceptibly develop them into an engaging effusion, or,
without actual offence, draw back into a condition of unapproachable
exclusiveness as the necessity may arise. With us, O my immaculate sire,
a yellow silk umbrella has for three thousand years denoted a fixed and
recognisable title. A mandarin of the sixth degree need not hesitate to
mingle on terms of assured equality with other mandarins of the sixth
degree, and without any guide beyond a seemly instinct h