Chapter XIII: Book II (8)

Here Introduction ends and Travel begins with the part partly translated by Dr. King: Crapulia, named from Crapula, is the Land of Inebriate Excess, and its two provinces, Pamphagonia and Yvronia, mean by their names the provinces of Omnivorous Gluttony and Drunkenness. Dr. King has translated six chapters, and begun the seventh, which is upon the wars of the Pamphagonians, to which they march forth armed with spits and two-pronged forks and heavy ribs of beef. In their free city, Ucalegon, built near the borders of Moronia, the citizens live happy as monks. They are so well shut in by high rocks that they can laugh at enemies, and through a hollow in the rocks with softest pace creeps the river Oysivius (the Idle). There is only one way up, their rocks for the inhabitants, and that is not by zigzag steps, but by a rope and basket. Birds wholly peculiar to the place supply food by being themselves eatable, and by the great multitude of their eggs, and by the loads of fish they bring into their nests to feed their young. The citizens make to themselves also beds of the soft feathers of these birds. This valley yields to the people of Ucalegon everything except what they don't care for. They are free, therefore, to sup, sleep, rise, dine, and lie down.

Husbandry, as among the old Egyptians, consists chiefly in feeding pigs, for the husbandmen wait on the rich. One, with a gentle touch, opens the richer man's eyes when he wakes; another fans him with a flapper while he eats; another puts bits into his mouth when it opens. There are two cities under Ucalegon, Livona and Roncara (Snort and Snore), which have like privileges, except that here the inhabitants are almost always asleep, and fatten wonderfully.

These are among the laws of Crapulia:--It is a crime to drink alone. Whoever has defrauded Nature by fasting four hours after sleep shall be compelled to sup. When the mouth is full it is enough to answer questions by holding out a finger. What cook soever shall treat food so that it cannot be eaten, shall be tied to a stake beside which is hung meat half raw or half burnt, and shall remain so tied until somebody comes who will eat that meat.

No coin of metal is current in Crapulia, but they make payment in kind. Thus two sparrows are one starling, two starlings are one fieldfare, two fieldfares one hen, two hens one goose, two geese one lamb, two lambs one kid, two kids one goat, two goats one cow, and so forth.

The next chapter is on the Religion of the Crapulians. They hate Jove because his thunder turns the wine sour and he spoils ripe fruit by raining on it. Their God is Time, who eats everything.

But I hasten, says the traveller, to the palace of the Grand Duke, whither I was happily led by my genius. The first Duke must have been as large as the man two of whose teeth were dug up at Cambridge, each as big as a man's head. On his tomb is an inscription. "I Omasius, Duke of Fagonia, Lord, Victor, Prince and God lie here. No man shall say I starved, shall pass by fasting, or salute me sober. Let him be my heir who can, my subject who will, my enemy who dares. Farewell and Fatten."

After a description of the Island of Hunger, the traveller passes from Pamphagonia to Yvronia, the other province of Crapulia.

These are among the laws of Yvronia:--A cup must be either full or empty. Whoever takes or returns a cup half empty shall be guilty of _lese societe_. The sober man who hurts a drunkard, shall be cut off from wine for ever: if he kill a drunkard, he shall die by thirst. To walk from supper in a right line shall be criminal. He who adds water to wine shall be degraded to the table of the dogs.

Yvronia having been described in seven chapters, the traveller in this Other-and-Same World passes on to Viraginia, the land of the Viragoes. This is Gynia Nova, miswritten New Guinea. The chief of its many provinces is Linguadocia, in which Garrula is one of the famous cities. In Viraginia the traveller was at once made prisoner, but permitted to see the land after he had subscribed to certain articles, as, That in word or deed he would work no ill to the nobler sex; That he would never interpose a word when a woman was speaking; That wherever he might be he would concede domestic rule to the woman; That he would never deny to a wife any ornament of dress she looked at.

As to its form of government, the state seemed to be a democracy, in which all governed and none obeyed. They settled affairs at public meetings, in which all spoke and none listened; and they had a perpetual Parliament.

The men in Viraginia are subject to the women. When a wife leaves her house for any reason, she places the care of her husband under any other woman of the household until she returns. A husband who survives his wife, is married at once to his wife's maid, or goes into bondage to the nearest mother of a family, because it is not permitted that any man shall become master in his own house.

The women sit while the men serve, sleep when the men are roused to get up, scold them when they complain, and beat them. That day is worthy to be marked with a white stone to which men can say good-bye with a whole skin.

Contrary to the custom with us, the women in Viraginia cut their hair and let their nails grow. Some of them also practise with profit the gymnastic art, so that they can make beautiful use of teeth, nails, and heels. A nobler and more cleanly polished place is not to be seen than Viraginia, where everything is washed, cooked and cared for by the men, and there is nothing unbecoming but the garments of the men themselves.

The next land to be visited was Moronia, Foolsland, the vastest, the most uncultivated and the most populous of all these countries. To the east is Variana or Moronia Mobilis, to the north is Moronia Aspera, to the south Moronia Felix, and to the west Moronia Pia. The people are, nearly all of them, tall and fat, with palish hair, prominent lips, and very thick ears. In midwinter they go with their chests open, and the rest of the body lightly clothed, that the warmth may enter the more readily, and the cold go out of them; but in summer they put on thick overcoats and cloaks, and all the clothes they have, to shut out the heat. They shave their heads, either because they remember that they were born bald, or to allay the heat of the brain, or because the hair comes between the brain and heaven, and checks the freedom of the mind in going heavenward.

Provinces, towns and people of Moronia having been visited and fully described, the traveller through this Other-and-Same World then proceeds to describe Lavernia, the Land of Thieves and Cheats, who obtain great part of their plunder from Moronia. In this land the Larcinians require much attention. And at the end of all, adds Joseph Hall, "These men, these manners, these cities I have seen, have marvelled at, have laughed at, and at last, broken by the toils of so great a journey, have returned to my own land. PEREGRINUS, QUONDAM ACADEMICUS."

Dr. William King was born in the year 1663, son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman of London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He early inherited a fair estate, took his Master of Arts degree in 1688, and began his career as writer with a refutation of attacks upon Wiclif in the "History of Heresy," by M. Varillas. He then chose law for a profession, in 1692 graduated as LL.D., and was admitted an Advocate at Doctor's Commons. He kept a light heart and a lighter purse than beseemed one of his fraternity, publishing playful satires, at times showing an earnest mind under his mirth. In or soon after the year 1702 Dr. King went to Ireland as judge of the High Court of Admiralty, sole Commissioner of the Prizes, Vicar-General to the Lord Primate, and Keeper of the Records in Birmingham's Tower, in which office he was succeeded in 1708 by Joseph Addison. Dr. King, who had not increased his credit for a love of work, returned to London about that time, and following his own way of mirth began publishing "Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of learning." In 1709 he published the best of his playful poems, "The Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry; with some letters to Dr. Lister and others, occasioned principally by the Title of a Book published by the Doctor, being the works of Apicius Coelius concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Ancients." When he came across Joseph Hall's satire, he found it so much to his mind that he began to translate as follows:--

H.M.

CRAPULIA.