Previous - Next

things to smell and to eat, which really did seem to have some temper-
mending quality about them, for I soon felt pleased and was at once
congratulated upon being better. The next morning two or three people
sent their servants to the hotel with sweetmeats, and inquiries whether I
had quite recovered from my ill humour. On receiving the good things I
felt in half a mind to be ill-tempered every evening; but I disliked the
condolences and the inquiries, and found it most comfortable to keep my
natural temper, which is smooth enough generally.

Among those who came to visit me were some who had received a liberal
education at the Colleges of Unreason, and taken the highest degrees in
hypothetics, which are their principal study. These gentlemen had now
settled down to various employments in the country, as straighteners,
managers and cashiers of the Musical Banks, priests of religion, or what
not, and carrying their education with them they diffused a leaven of
culture throughout the country. I naturally questioned them about many
of the things which had puzzled me since my arrival. I inquired what was
the object and meaning of the statues which I had seen upon the plateau
of the pass. I was told that they dated from a very remote period, and
that there were several other such groups in the country, but none so
remarkable as the one which I had seen. They had a religious origin,
having been designed to propitiate the gods of deformity and disease. In
former times it had been the custom to make expeditions over the ranges,
and capture the ugliest of Chowbok's ancestors whom they could find, in
order to sacrifice them in the presence of these deities, and thus avert
ugliness and disease from the Erewhonians themselves. It had been
whispered (but my informant assured me untruly) that centuries ago they
had even offered up some of their own people who were ugly or out of
health, in order to make examples of them; these detestable customs,
however, had been long discontinued; neither was there any present
observance of the statues.

I had the curiosity to inquire what would be done to any of Chowbok's
tribe if they crossed over into Erewhon. I was told that nobody knew,
inasmuch as such a thing had not happened for ages. They would be too
ugly to be allowed to go at large, but not so much so as to be criminally
liable. Their offence in having come would be a moral one; but they
would be beyond the straightener's art. Possibly they would be consigned
to the Hospital for Incurable Bores, and made to work at being bored for
so many hours a day by the Erewhonian inhabitants of the hospital, who
are extremely impatient of one another's boredom, but would soon die if
they had no one whom they might bore--in fact, that they would be kept as
professional borees. When I heard this, it occurred to me that some
rumours of its substance might perhaps have become current among

Previous - Next