I admitted that there was a race on the external world, inhabitants of some islands far to the north, who, from their vicinity to the place of exile, might be the descendants of the outcasts, but who, in my opinion, were more probably the descendants of the Belzubians, being a restless, turbulent people, much given to depredations upon the rights and property of others, of insatiable ambition, inordinate avarice, and excessive vanity; who made war their chief occupation, maintaining vast fleets and armies; who plundered the feeble, enslaved the unwary, and levied contributions by force or fraud upon the whole human race: That these islanders were a distinct people, who were regardless of the rights of others, being governed by cupidity, whereby they had become detestable to all the rest of the externals, and to my nation in particular, to so great a degree, that our Wise men (who have the control in the government, the Good and Useful being held in but little estimation by the wise and the useless in my country) had repeatedly ordained a non-intercourse, in the vain hope of bringing these supposed descendants of the Belzubians to a sense of justice; and that we were at this time only secure from their attacks, by an invention for blowing them into the air, if they ventured to assail our shores; that the book which had misled the Wise man was written by one of this people, and had no reference to my country. Before I had completed my work to my satisfaction, I received the agreeable intelligence, that the Best Man, supported by all the Good and most of the Useful of his council, had ordered the name of the Wise man who made the proposition, to be erased from the list of Worthies, as a cruel monster, for seriously proposing the infliction, upon strangers who had voluntarily thrown themselves upon the hospitality of the country, of penalties enacted only to render the consequences of the return of the outcasts too frightful to be encountered by them. This was the only unpleasant occurrence during my stay. The days flew on with astonishing rapidity, so agreeably were they passed. The Symzonians slept but about three hours in the four-and-twenty, and considered me a very gross and sluggish being because I could not do without six hours sleep. With the exception of this short interval, every moment was occupied in conversation, study, observation, or amusement. Statistics, geography, botany, ærology, geology, mineralogy, zoology, ornithology, ichthiology, conchology, and entomology, in turn demanded and received my attention. CHAPTER XIII. Recreations of the Symzonians.--Wonderful provision of nature for supplying the internal world with light.--Character and employments of the women of Symzonia.