Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

CHAPTER XI. Containing some account of the Symzonian engine of defence.--Story of a very ancient war with an internal nation called Belzubians, which caused the invention of this engine.--Opposition of the Good men to its being used.--Fultria the inventor's speech in defence of it.--Deliberations of the Council.--Termination of the war.--Sentiments of the people on the subject. 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.