And yet has not this Engine been without its continual Disasters, and often out of repair; for though the Kings of the Country, as has been Noted, have done riding on the back of it, yet the restless Courtiers and Ministers of State have frequently obtained the Management of it, from the too easy Goodness of their Masters, or the Evils of the Times. To Cure this, the Princes frequently chang'd Hands, turn'd one Set of Men out and put another in: But this made things still worse; for it divided the People into Parties and Factions in the State, and still the Strife was, who should ride in this Engine; and no sooner were these Skaet-Riders got into it, but they were for driving all the Nation up to the Moon: But of this by it self. Authors differ concerning the Original of these Feathers, and by what most exact Hand they were first appointed to this particular use; and as their Original is hard to be found, so it seems a Difficulty to resolve from what sort of Bird these Feathers are obtained: Some have nam'd one, some another; but the most Learned in those Climates call it by a hard Word, which the Printer having no Letters to express, and being in that place Hierogliphical, I can translate no better, than by the Name of a Collective: This must be a Strange Bird without doubt; it has Heads, Claws, Eyes and Teeth innumerable; and if I should go about to describe it to you, the History would be so Romantick, it would spoil the Credit of these more Authentick Relations which are yet behind. 'Tis sufficient, therefore, for the present, only to leave you this short Abridgement of the Story, as follows: This great Monstrous Bird, call'd the Collective, is very seldom seen, and indeed never, but upon Great Revolutions, and portending terrible Desolations and Destructions to a Country. But he frequently sheds his Feathers; and they are carefully pickt up, by the Proprietors of those Lands where they fall; for none but those Proprietors may meddle with them; and they no sooner pick them up but they are sent to Court, where they obtain a new Name, and are called in a Word equally difficult to pronounce as the other, but Very like our English Word, Representative; and being placed in their proper Rows, with the Great Feather in the Center, and fitted for use, they lately obtained the Venerable Title of, The Consolidators; and the Machine it self, the Consolidator; and by that Name the Reader is desir'd for the future to let it be dignified and distinguish'd. I cannot, however, forbear to descant a little here, on the Dignity and Beauty of these Feathers, being such as are hardly to be seen in any part of the World, but just in these remote Climates.