Then entered dwarf-stewards, and major-domos; aloft bearing twisted antlers; all hollowed out in goblets, grouped; announcing dinner. Loving not, however, to dine with misshapen Mardians, King Media was loth to move. But Babbalanja, quoting the old proverb—“Strike me in the face, but refuse not my yams,” induced him to sacrifice his fastidiousness. So, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceeded to the banquet. Central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild Banian; like a huge centipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths for legs. This table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities of calabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods. The first course was shrimp-soup, served in great clampshells; the second, lobsters, cuttle-fish, crabs, cockles, cray-fish; the third, hunchbacked roots of the Taro-plant—plantains, perversely curling at the end, like the inveterate tails of pertinacious pigs; and for dessert, ill-shaped melons, huge as idiots’ heads, plainly suffering from water in the brain. Now these viands were commended to the favorable notice of all guests; not only for their delicacy of flavor, but for their symmetry. And in the intervals of the courses, we were bored with hints to admire numerous objects of vertu: bow-legged stools of mangrove wood; zig-zag rapiers of bone; armlets of grampus-vertebrae; outlandish tureens of the callipees of terrapin; and cannakins of the skulls of baboons. The banquet over, with many congees, we withdrew. Returning to the water-side, we passed a field, where dwarfs were laboring in beds of yams, heaping the soil around the roots, by scratching it backward; as a dog. All things in readiness, Yoky’s valet, a tri-armed dwarf, treated us to a glorious start, by giving each canoe a vigorous triple-push, crying, “away with ye, monsters!” Nor must it be omitted that just previous to embarking, Vee-Vee, spying a curious looking stone, turned it over, and found a snake. CHAPTER LXXI. A Book From The “Ponderings Of Old Bardianna” “Now,” said Babbalanja, lighting his trombone as we sailed from the isle, “who are the monsters, we or the cripples?” “You yourself are a monster, for asking the question,” said Mohi. “And so, to the cripples I am; though not, old man, for the reason you mention. But I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge. There is no supreme standard yet revealed, whereby to judge of ourselves; ‘Our very instincts are prejudices,’ saith Alla Mallolla; ‘Our very axioms, and postulates are far from infallible.’ ‘In respect of the universe, mankind is but a sect,’ saith Diloro: ‘and first principles but dogmas.’ What ethics prevail in the Pleiades? What things have the synods in Sagittarius decreed?” “Never mind your old authors,” said Media. “Stick to the cripples; enlarge upon them.”