full history of my life and adventures in Mogon-Zwair, and a
detailed description of the country, its people, their manners and
customs, I must ask the reader to await the publication of a book, now in
the press, entitled _A Blackened Eye_; in this brief account I can give
only a few of such particulars as seem instructive by contrast with our
own civilization.

The inhabitants of Mogon-Zwair call themselves Golampis, a word signifying
Sons of the Fair Star. Physically they closely resemble ourselves, being
in all respects the equals of the highest Caucasian type. Their hair,
however, has a broader scheme of color, hair of every hue known to us, and
even of some imperceptible to my eyes but brilliant to theirs, being too
common to excite remark. A Golampian assemblage with uncovered heads
resembles, indeed, a garden of flowers, vivid and deep in color, no two
alike. They wear no clothing of any kind, excepting for adornment and
protection from the weather, resembling in this the ancient Greeks and the
Japanese of yesterday; nor was I ever able to make them comprehend that
clothing could be worn for those reasons for which it is chiefly worn
among ourselves. They are destitute of those feelings of delicacy and
refinement which distinguish us from the lower animals, and which, in the
opinion of our acutest and most pious thinkers, are evidences of our close
relation to the Power that made us.

Among this people certain ideas which are current among ourselves as mere
barren faiths expressed in disregarded platitudes receive a practical
application to the affairs of life. For example, they hold, with the best,
wisest and most experienced of our own race, and one other hereafter to be
described, that wealth does not bring happiness and is a misfortune and an
evil. None but the most ignorant and depraved, therefore, take the trouble
to acquire or preserve it. A rich Golampi is naturally regarded with
contempt and suspicion, is shunned by the good and respectable and
subjected to police surveillance. Accustomed to a world where the rich man
is profoundly and justly respected for his goodness and wisdom (manifested
in part by his own deprecatory protests against the wealth of which,
nevertheless, he is apparently unable to rid himself) I was at first
greatly pained to observe the contumelious manner of the Golampis toward
this class of men, carried in some instances to the length of personal
violence; a popular amusement being