and comeliness in the female; not upon the account of love, but to preferve the race from degenerating; for where a female happens to excel in frength; a confort is chofen with regard to comeliness. Courtship, love, prefents, jointures, fettlements, have no place in their thoughts; or terms whereby to express them in their language. The young couple meet and are joined, merely because it is the determination of their parents and friends: it is what they fee done every day, and they look upon it as one of the neceffary actions of a reasonable being. But the violation of marriage, or any other unchaftity, was never heard of; and the mar ried pair pass their lives with the fame friendship, and mutual benevolence, that they bear to others of the fame fpecies who come in their way; without jealoufy, fondness, quarrelling, or difcontent. In educating the youth of both fexes, their method is admirable, and highly deserveth our imitation. These are not fuffered to taste a grain of oats, except upon cer tain days, till eighteen years old; nor milk, but very rarely; and in fummer they graze two hours in the morn ing, and as many in the evening, which their parents likeways obferve; but the fervants are not allowed above half that time, and a great part of their grafs is brought hoine, which they eat at the most convenient hours, when they can be beft fpared from work. Temperance, induftry, exercife, and cleanliness, arethe leffons equally enjoined to the young ones of both fexes and my mafter thought it monftrous in us to give the females a different kind of education from the males, except in fome articles of domeftic management; whereby, as he truly obferved, one half of our natives were good for nothing but bringing children into the world :and to trust the care of our children to fuch ufelefs ani mals, he faid, was yet a greater inftance of brutality. But the Houyhnhnms train up their youth to ftrength, Speed, and hardinefs, by exercifing them in running races up and down fteep hills, and over hard ftony grounds', and when they are all in a sweat, they are ordered to leap over head and ears into a pond or river. Four times a year the youth of a certain diftrict meet to fhew their proficiency in running and leaping, and other feats of Z 3 ftrength strength and agility; where the victor is rewarded, with a fong in his or her praife. On this feftival the fervants drive a herd of yahoos into the field, laden with hay, and oats, and milk, for a repast to the Houyhnhnms; after which thefe brutes are immediately driven back again, for fear of being noisome to the affembly. Every fourth year, at the vernal equinox, there is a reprefentative council of the whole nation, which meets in a plain about twenty miles from our house, and continueth about five or fix days. Here they enquire into the state and condition of the feveral diftricts; whether they abound, or be deficient in bay or oats, or cows or yahoos? and wherever there is any want (which is but feldom), it is immediately fupplied by unanimous confent and contribution. Here likewife the regulation of chil dren is fettled: as for inftance, if a Houyhnhnm hath two males, he changeth one of them with another that hath two females: and when a child hath been loft by any cafualty, where the mother is past breeding, it is de termined what family in the district shall breed another to fupply the lols. CHAP. IX. Agrand debate at the general affembly of the Houyhnhnms, and how it was determined. The learning of the Houyhnhnms. Their buildings. Their manner of burials. The defectiveness of their language. Ο NE of thefe grand affemblies was held in my time, about three months before my departure, whither my mafter went as the reprefentative of our district. In this council was refumed their old debate, and indeed the only debate that ever happened in their country; whereof my mafter after his return gave me a very particulaṛ account. The question to be debated was, whether the yahoos fhould be exterminated from the face of the earth. One of the members for the affirmative, offered feveral argu ments of great ftrength and weight; alledging, that as the yahoos were the most filthy, noifome, and deformed animal which nature ever produced, so they were the most most reslive and indocile, mifchievous and malicious: they would privately fuck the teats of the Houyhnhms cows, kill and devour their cats, trample down their oats and grafs, if they were not continually watched; and commit a thousand other extravagancies. He took no tice of a general tradition, that yahoos had not been al ways in their country; but that, many ages ago, two of thefe brutes appeared together upon a mountain; whether produced by the heat of the fun upon corrupted mud and flime, or from the ooze and froth of the fea, was Dever known: that thefe yahoos engendered, and their brood, in a fhort time, grew fo numerous as to over run and infeft the whole nation: that the Houyhnhnms, to get rid of this evil, made a general hunting, and at laft in• clofed the whole herd; and destroying the elder, every Houyhnhnm kept two young ones in a kennel, and brought them to fuch a degree of tameness, as an ani mal lo favage by nature can be capable of acquiring; u fing them for draught and carriage: that there feemed to be much truth in this tradition, and that thofe creatures could not be rubniamfhy (or aborigines of the land), be cause of the violent hatred the Houyhnhnms, as well as all other animals, bore them; which, although their evil difpofition-fufficiently deferved, could never have arrived at fo high a degree, if they had been Aborigines; or else they would have long fince been rooted out that the inhabitants, taking a fancy to use the service of the yahoos, had very imprudently neglected to cultivate the breed of affes, which are a comely animal, eafily kept, more tame and orderly, without any offenfive fmell, ftrong enough for labour, although they yield to the other in agility of body; and, if their braying be no agreeable found, it is far preferable to the horrible howlings of the yahoos. Several others declared their fentiments to the fame purpose, when my mafter propofed an expedient to the affembly, whereof he had indeed borrowed the hint from me. He approved of the tradition mentioned by the honourable member, who spoke before; and affirmed, that the two yahoos, faid to be the firft feen among them, had been driven thither over the fea; that, coming to land, and being forfaken by their companions, they retired to the mountains, and, degenerating by degrees, be came came in process of time much more favage, than those of their own species in the country from whence these twooriginals came. The reafon of this affertion was, that he had now in his poffeffion a certain wonderful yahoo (meaning myfelf), which moft of them had heard of, and many of them had seen. He then related to them, how he first found me: that my body was all covered with an artificial compofure of the fkus and hairs of other animals: that I poke in a language of my own, and had thoroughly learned theirs: that I had related to him the accidents which brought me thither; that, when he faw me without my covering, I was an exact yahoo in every part, only of a whiter colour, lefs hairy, and with fhorter claws. He added, how I had endeavoured to perfuade him, that, in my own and other countries, the yaboos acted as the governing, rational animal, and held the Houyhubnms in fervitude: that he obferved in me all the qualities of a yahoo, only a little more civilized by fome tincture of reafon; which however was in a degree as far inferior to the Houyhnhnm race, as the jahoos of their country were to me that, among others things, I mentioned a cuftom we had of cafirating Houyhnhnms when they were young, in order to render them tame; that the operation was cafy and fafe; that it was nơ fhame to learn wisdom from brutes, as induftry is taught by the ant, and building by the fwallow (for fo I tran flate the word shannh, although it be a much larger fowl): that this invention might be practifed upon the younger yahoos here, which, besides rendering them tractable and fitter for ufe, would in an age put an end to the whole fpecies without deftroying life: that, in the mean time, the Houyhnhums should be exhorted to cultivate the breed of affes, which as they are in all respects more valu able brutes; fo they have this advantage, to be fit for fervite at five years old, which the others are not till twelve: This was all my mafter thought fit to tell me at that time, of what paffed in the grand council. But he was pleafed to conceal one particular, which related perfonally to myfelf, whereof I foon felt the unhappy effect, as the reader will know in its proper place, and from whence I date all the fucceeding misfortunes of my life... The Houyhnhnms have no letters, and confequently their knowledge is all traditional. But there happening few events of any moment among a people fo well uni ted, naturally difpofed to every virtue, wholly governed by reason, and cut off from all commerce with other na tions; the hiftorical part is eafity preferved without bur dening their memories. I have already obferved, that they are fubject to no difeafes, and therefore can have no need of phyficians. However, they have excellent medicines compofed of herbs, to cure accidental bruifes, and cuts in the paftern or frog of the foot by fharp ftones, as well as other maims and hurts in the feveral parts of the body. They calculate the year by the revolution of the fun and the moon, but ufe no fubdivifions into weeks. They are well enough acquainted with the motions of thofe two luminaries, and understand the nature of eclipfes; and this is the utmost progress of their aftronomy. In poetry they must be allowed to excel all other mor tals; wherein the juftness of their families, and the munuteness as well as exactnefs of their defcriptions, are in deed inimitable. Their verses abound very much in both of thefe; and ufually contain either fome exalted notions of friendship and benevolence, or the praifes of thofe,. who were victors in races and other bodily exercises. Their buildings, although very rude and fimple, are not inconvenient, but well contrived to defend them from all injuries of cold and heat. They have a kind of tree, which at forty years old loofens in the root, and falls with the first storm; it grows very firait, and being point ed like stakes, with a sharp ftone (for the Houyhnhams know not the ufe of iron), they stick them erect io the ground about ten inches asunder, and their weave in oat traw, or fometimes wattles; betwixt them. The roof is made after the fame manner, and fo are the doors. The Houyhnhnms ule the hollow part, between the pastern and the hoof, of their fore feet, as we do our hands, and this with greater dexterity than I could at fill imagine. I have feen a white mare of our family; thread a needle (which lent her on purpose) with that joint. They milk their cows, reap their oats, and do all the work which requires hands in the fame manner; They have a kind of hard flints, which, by grinding a |