Gervaas, though by nature of a somewhat crusty disposition, was by no means a cruel man—at least he had none of that delight in inflicting pain, as such, which characterizes some of our species. In fact he was very fond of most sorts of animals, and confined his malevolence strictly to the human race, of which his experience had been so unfavourable. When his medical education was completed he was sent, as surgeon, for several voyages in an English vessel commanded by another malignant friend of his father; and assuredly the rough and coarse life on board had no tendency to counteract his pessimistic estimate of mankind. The British mariners, with their habitual contempt of foreigners, considered Doctor Van, as they called him, an eligible subject for all sorts of violent practical jokes; which, to do him justice, he retaliated, whenever he got the chance, by the infliction of lingering torments in various surgical operations. The doctor, who had a considerable gift for languages, soon picked up English, and a copy of the, just then published, ‘Voyages of Captain Gulliver’ falling into his hands, he read them with intense interest; being specially delighted with the account of the crazy philosophers in the third voyage, and, above all, with the horrible description of the Yahoos in the fourth. From this time, indeed, he seems to have invariably used this term in speaking of his fellow-men. When he had reached the age of about thirty years his mother died; and as his father did not long survive her, the young man inherited an amount of property which afforded him a tolerable income, and rendered him independent of his profession. He resolved to abandon it and visit the East; for, having made several voyages to Bombay, he had come to the conclusion that the Yahoos of that part of the world were less intolerable than the European specimens of the breed. So he took his passage in an English East Indiaman, and, after an uneventful voyage, landed at Bombay in the early part of the year 1729. As soon as the anchor was cast in the roads he lost not a moment in quitting the ship, having with difficulty escaped the indignity of being obliged to shake hands with the Yahoo captain. On landing he took up his quarters at the house of a trader to whom he had a letter of introduction; and, shortly afterwards, by the merest accident, he encountered in the street an old Parsee merchant, who, though of course a Yahoo, seems not to have been absolutely intolerable in the eyes of the over-sensitive misanthrope, whose notes, at this point, become continuous for the first time.]