t
by the weakness of approaching old age, the vile-intentioned mendacity
of outcasts envious of the House of Kong, and, perchance, the irritation
brought on by a too lavish indulgence in your favourite dish of stewed
mouse.

Having thus re-established himself in the clear-sighted affection of an
ever mild and perfect father, and cleansed the ground of all possible
misunderstandings in the future, this person will concede the fact that,
not to stand beneath the faintest shadow of an implied blemish in your
sympathetic eyes, he had no sooner understood the attitude in which he
had been presented than he at once plunged into the virtuous society of
a band of the sombre and benevolent.

These, so far as his intelligence enables him to grasp the position,
may be reasonably accepted as the barbarian equivalent of those very
high-minded persons who in our land devote their whole lives secretly
to killing others whom they consider the chief deities do not really
approve of; for although they are not permitted here, either by written
law or by accepted custom, to perform these meritorious actions, they
are so intimately initiated into the minds and councils of the Upper
Ones that they are able to pronounce very severe judgments of torture--a
much heavier penalty than merely being assassinated--upon all who remain
outside their league. As some of the most objurgatory of these alliances
do not number more than a score of persons, it is inevitable that the
ultimate condition of the whole barbarian people must be hazardous in
the extreme.

Having associated myself with this class sufficiently to escape their
vindictive pronouncements, and freely professed an unswerving adherence
to their rites, I next sought out the priests of other altars, intending
by a seemly avowal to each in turn to safeguard my future existence
effectually. This I soon discovered to be beyond the capacity of an
ordinary lifetime, for whereas we, with four hundred million subjects
find three religions to be sufficient to meet every emergency, these
irresolute island children, although numbering us only as one to ten,
vacillate among three hundred; and even amid this profusion it is
asserted that most of the barbarians are unable to find any temple
exactly conforming to their requirements, and after writing to the paper
to announce the fact, abandon the search in despair.

It was while I was becoming proficient in the inner subtleties of one
of these orders