I had now performed the toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly refused, for his majesty did not think my abilities would warrant promotion. He condescended to refer me to the laws and customs, which allowed those only to be placed in respectable and important offices, who were fitted for them by talent and virtue. It was necessary, he continued, that I should remain where I was, till I could, by my merits, pave my way to distinction. He concluded thus: Study to know yourself, is wisdom's rule; The wise man reasons,--blunders, still, the fool. Strive not with feeble powers great weights to move, Before your shoulders long experience prove. I was thus obliged to remain, as patiently as I could, in my old service, amusing myself in thinking how to bring my talents to the light. In my continual journeys about the country, I studied the nature of the people, the quality of the soil; and, in short, became accurately acquainted with every thing worthy of observation. That I might not forget any thing, I used myself to write notes of each journey. These notes I enlarged afterwards, as well as I could, and was thus enabled to deliver to the king a volume of considerable size. I soon observed that this work was far from being displeasing to his majesty. He read it through with attention, and then recommended it to the senate with much ceremony. It was soon determined that I should be made use of to discover and make known whatever there was of interest throughout the planet. Truly! I expected some other reward for my sleepless nights and laborious days, than still greater burthens, still heavier travail. But I could only in silence sigh with the poet: "Alas! that Virtue should be praised by all,-- Should warm, with its mild beams, all hearts: Yet mock and freeze its owner." However, as I have always had a great desire to see and hear every thing new, and expected, withal, a magnificent reward from the really kind-hearted king on my return, I set about this work with a kind of pleasure. Although the planet Nazar is but about six hundred miles in circumference, it seems, to the trees, of vast extent, principally on account of their slow movement. No Potuan could go round it in less time than two years, whereas, I, with my long legs, could traverse it easily in two months. I set out on this journey in the Poplar month.