The species of animal that rules in this region is the most ill-favoured of all God’s creatures. His head, instead of conforming to our graceful model, is nearly round like a melon, and partly covered with short hair like hogs’ bristles, only thicker, darker, and not so clean looking; his neck is almost hidden between his shoulders, and only develops by becoming thicker and shorter; his skin is of an earthy colour; and to complete this ridiculous picture, he has got into the stupid way of walking on his hind-legs, and swinging those in front to maintain his equilibrium. It is difficult to imagine any figure more vulgar or absurd. I am inclined to think that this poor animal is afflicted with a painful sense of his deformity, for he hides as much of his figure as possible. He uses for this purpose an artificial covering fabricated out of the bark of plants and skins of animals. This device does not mend matters, as it renders him an ugly piece of patchwork. The first sight of a man—that is the name by which this hideous animal is known—will cause you to be thankful you were born clothed by the Creator in matchless attire, and that you have never fallen into the hands of a Parisian tailor. We express our sentiments and needs in simple sounds and looks; they, on the other hand—who appear formerly to have enjoyed the same privilege—carried away by a fatal instinct, or, if one must believe the wisest of them, subject to a destiny of incomparable punishment, supplanted nature’s simple language by an almost continuous grumbling. They have invented sounds in abundance to signify what they don’t want and can’t get, and spend half their days in gabbling over the limited nature of their moral and physical appetites. These sounds sometimes express wishes, but more frequently what is called ideas. Ideas are in themselves nothing, although they are the key to all that is deficient, cross, and hostile in what these creatures call conversation. When two Men separate after conversing for hours, we may rest assured {355} that the one ignores all that has been said by the other, and hates him more thoroughly than before.