The prohibition by the Best Man of any information being given to me of their engines of defence, excited my curiosity. I was anxious to discover what those engines were, and why a people so good, so benevolent, and so harmless, could have any occasion for them. I dared not ask for any direct account of their nature, as I knew that an attempt to induce any one to break through the Best Man's injunctions, would be considered as the greatest of offences, and cause my immediate expulsion from the favoured district. All my efforts to obtain the desired information indirectly, fell short of my object. I however gathered from casual observation, and from some manuscripts which fell into my hands, that in times long past, the people of Symzonia maintained a commercial intercourse with a nation on the opposite side of the internal world, beyond the equator, called in their ancient manuscripts Belzubians. This intercourse was kept up for many years; for the Wise men contended that it was beneficial, by enabling the people of Symzonia to obtain many things cheaper than they could themselves produce them. But in process of time, the Good men discovered that the people became poorer, more addicted to idleness, and given to the indulgence of many inordinate desires and extravagant vanities. At length the unworthy became so numerous, as to endanger the morality and virtue of the whole community, and it was necessary to banish them to a place of exile, in the hot regions near the extreme limit of the world at the north. This was the origin of the system of casting out the corrupted members of society. At the time of its adoption, the government endeavoured to remove the cause of the evil by prohibiting, as they had a clear right to do, all further intercourse, for purposes of trade, with the Belzubians: but the latter had become so depraved and sordid, by their addiction to traffic, and were so puffed up with the idea that they were the most powerful nation of the two, that they resolved to maintain a commerce with the Symzonians by force, in defiance of the regulations of the government. The Good men were thus placed in a most painful dilemma. They could not prevent this forced intercourse entirely, Without shedding the blood of their fellow beings, to which they felt an insurmountable aversion. For a time they contented themselves with endeavours to reclaim the people. They exhorted them to abstain from the use of the things brought by the Belzubians; and finally succeeded so far as to diminish the advantages which their enemies had before derived from the trade, so as to make it no longer worth pursuing. The Belzubians then sent armed men in their ships to take possession of Symzonia, and compel the Good men and the people to submit to the contaminating intercourse demanded by their cupidity.