connection
between the two malefic phenomena, both, doubtless, being due to the same
cause, which I have been unable to trace. A cyclone, I venture to remind
your gracious Majesty, is a mighty whirlwind, accompanied by the most
startling meteorological phenomena, such as electrical disturbances,
floods of falling water, darkness and so forth. It moves with great speed,
sucking up everything and reducing it to powder. In many days' journey I
have not found a square _copret_ of the country that did not suffer a
visitation. If any human being escaped he must speedily have perished from
starvation. For some twenty centuries the Pukes have been an extinct race,
and their country a desolation in which no living thing can dwell, unless,
like me, it is supplied with Dr. Blobob's Condensed Life-pills."

The Ahkoond replied that he was pleased to feel the most poignant grief
for the fate of the unfortunate Pukes, and if I should by chance find the
ancient king of the country I was to do my best to revive him with the
patent resuscitator and present him the assurances of his Majesty's
distinguished consideration; but as the politoscope showed that the nation
had been a republic I gave myself no trouble in the matter.

My next report was made six months later and was in substance this:

"_Sire:_ I address your Majesty from a point 430 _coprets_ vertically above
the site of the famous ancient city of Buffalo, once the capital of a
powerful nation called the Smugwumps. I can approach no nearer because of
the hardness of the snow, which is very firmly packed. For hundreds of
_prastams_ in every direction, and for thousands to the north and west, the
land is covered with this substance, which, as your Majesty is doubtless
aware, is extremely cold to the touch, but by application of sufficient
heat can be turned into water. It falls from the heavens, and is believed
by the learned among your Majesty's subjects to have a sidereal origin.

"The Smugwumps were a hardy and intelligent race, but they entertained the
vain delusion that they could subdue Nature. Their year was divided into
two seasons--summer and winter, the former warm, the latter cold. About
the beginning of the nineteenth century according to my archaethermograph,
the summers began to grow shorter and hotter, the winters longer and
colder. At every point in their country, and every day in the year, when
they had not the hottest weather ever known in that place, they had th