POLITICS
Gulliver's Travels on the continent of Yahoorope
NOEL MALCOLM
No sooner had I departed from the Land of the Houyhnhnms than I was driven by a violent Storm onto the coast of the Continent of Yahoorope. On accosting the first Yahooropeans that I met, I was astonished to discover that their Common Language, which all the Better Sort have at their Command, is English. Indeed, their knowledge of this Tongue was more exact as to the Grammatical parts, than that of many of our Lower Orders: which caused me some sorrowful Reflexions upon the Distempers of our Publick Academies.
I made enquiry of these Strangers, Where the Capital City of Yahoorope might be found? To my surprise, this modest Question occasioned much Debate among them, some arguing for Strasbourg, others for Brussels, others again for Rome (which, they adduced, had ever been a Seat of Empire). One Enthusiast among them taking me aside, exhorted me to proceed to Frankfort upon the Main. That City, he said, was design'd to be the real Capital and Seat of Authority, in view of a most ingeniose Counting-House which was projected to be built there. (This Confi- dence, however, he whispered in my Ear, as a matter not, yet fit to be publickly acknowledg'd.) Their Deliberations coming to an end, I was assur'd by the greater part of the Company that I must proceed to Brussels, the Assembly at Strasbourg being but a Flim-Flam or Stratagem to keep the Com- mon People from acquiring any glimmer- ings of Knowledge or Concernment in Yahooropean Affairs of State. I was con- ducted by one of their number to a Station (as he put it) of the Rail Ways, and taken up into a great Wagon, which he called a Train. This he assured me would conveigh us speedily to Brussels; and no sooner had he spoken than it began to move, faster and faster still, until we had attained a Velocity scarce to be imagin'd. I was at first stricken with Horror, fearing a disorder of the Circulation of the Blood coming on from such a contrary Lateral Motion. My Companion, seeing my Alarm, sought to assuage my Fears. Why, he said, what was the entire State of Yahoorope but a Train, speeding ever faster thro' the Vastness of Time and Place? 'Sir', I replied, 'you have outgone in boldness even the Copernican Hypothesis'; but he said he spoke only Analogically. 'The mighty Train of Yahoorope', he cried, giving a great Shout like one of our Calvinist Divines at a Conventicle, 'is hurtling to its foreordained Destination: ill betide those who tarry in the Rear Wagons and do not take their place on the Driver's Seat'. I enquired whether, the Destination being foreordained, it could matter a whit who sat where? Whereupon he seemed to tire of my Questions, and took to peering fixedly at the Window.
Upon our Arrival in Brussels I asked to be conducted to the Court of the Emperor of Yahoorope. My guide, however, assured me that the Yahooropean Monarch kept up no great Pomp, his Whimsical manner of amusing himself being to say, that he was but a Civil Servant or Commissioner. Nevertheless it is acknowledg'd by all, that to him alone belongs the Authority to introduce Laws. Hence, it seems, comes his title, Monsieur The Law; 'Lex, Rex' being a Universal Maxim of State. Inform'd that this Monarch was visiting some other parts of his Dominion, I applied for an Audience with his Grand Vizier, whose Name (if I have also transcribed it accurately) is Surly on Britain. However, he declined to grant me that Priviledge. When I enquired of others as to the reason for this Reticence (a strange thing in a States-Man), I was told, to my great astonishment, that this Grand Vizier was a Fellow-Countryman of mine who, having sojourned many years in Yahoorope and made Obeisance to its Emperor, had quite fallen out of our Ways, so that although he could still make shift to speak our Tongue, he had utterly forgot the Meanings of Words.
At length I was conducted instead to the Academy of the Yahooropean Emperor, where many hundreds of Projectors are engaged in contriving new Rules and Methods of Agriculture, Trade and Manu- facture. The first Man I saw had spent many Years upon a Project for extracting Sunbeams from Cucumbers; but he had laid that Project aside for an Investigation of much graver Import, which was, to Prove that a Carrot was a Fruit. Granted, he said, that Sunbeams could not be extracted from Carrots, and that Cucum- bers are Vegetables, it follows that a Carrot is a Fruit: which he claimed as a most Euclidean Deduction.
In another Room of the Academy I found a Projector who had devised a new Method of Agriculture. All previous Methods, he said, had sought to find a Way for one Man to do the work of ten. 'I have Improved upon the Principle', said he: 'in my Method one Man is paid for the Work of ten'. His Goal, he told me, was to establish a System in which Farmers would be paid for not growing Food, and House- wives would pay for not eating it, any remaining Surplus of Edibles being con- veighed at no charge to poor, barbarous Countries beyond the Seas, to encourage Farmers in those Parts not to grow any Food either.
At length I entered the Council- Chamber of the Academy, where I found a gathering of Projectors engaged in their profoundest Speculations. The Project here, as I understood it, was to find a Way of making the Climate everywhere the same within the Yahooropean Empire. ('Oeconomick Climate' was the Phrase they used, but I could not penetrate its Meaning.) This Plan they explained as follows: a Decree would be made, that all Thermometers in the Empire must be fix'd in such a Manner, that their Readings would be everywhere the same. Suspecting a Paralogism in their Argument, I en- quired, whether altering the Thermo- meters would suffice, so long as the Temperatures remained different in diffe- rent Latitudes? I argued that a Mean or Average of the Temperatures would be a more fitting Instrument, and (warming to my theme) proposed that they might call it a YCU or Yahooropean Climatick Unit, and that the Common People might choose to make use of it when the Climate in their Province of Yahoorope approached the Temperate Mean. At this they waxed very angry, and one of the stoutest Fellows among them, who carried a great Stick, took me aside and enquired, whether I wanted a Crisis?
Finally they desired me to give some Account of the Countries in that distant Region of the World whence I had come. I began with an Account of Switzer-Land, which I described to them as a most prosperous Country, whose Merchants traded in every part of the World, and whose Thermometers were renown'd with- al for their exceeding Accuracy. They enquired, whether it were a Province of some great Federacy or Empire? I told them, No, whereupon they laughed hearti- ly, and said I was like all Travellers, a mere Teller of Fables and Ridiculous Fancies.
Previous page
