THE SPECTATOR, NUMB.  L.[1]

  Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit.
  JUV.[2]

FRIDAY, APRIL 27. 1711.

When the four Indian kings[3] were in this country about a twelvemonth ago, I often mixed with the rabble and followed them a whole day together, being wonderfully struck with the sight of everything that is new or uncommon.  I have, since their departure, employed a friend to make many enquiries of their landlord the upholsterer[4] relating to their manners and conversation, as also concerning the remarks which they made in this country:  for next to the forming a right notion of such strangers, I should be desirous of learning what ideas they have conceived of us.

The upholsterer finding my friend very inquisitive about these his lodgers, brought him some time since a little bundle of papers, which he assured him were written by King Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash Tow, and, as he supposes, left behind by some mistake.  These papers are now translated, and contain abundance of very odd observations, which I find this little fraternity of kings made during their stay in the isle of Great Britain.  I shall present my reader with a short specimen of them in this paper, and may perhaps communicate more to him hereafter.  In the article of London are the following words, which without doubt are meant of the church of St. Paul.

“On the most rising part of the town there stands a huge house, big enough to contain the whole nation of which I am king.  Our good brother E Tow O Koam king of the Rivers, is of opinion it was made by the hands of that great God to whom it is consecrated.  The kings of Granajah and of the Six Nations believe that it was created with the earth, and produced on the same day with the sun and moon.  But for my own part, by the best information that I could get of this matter, I am apt to think that this prodigious pile was fashioned into the shape it now bears by several tools and instruments; of which they have a wonderful variety in this country.  It was probably at first an huge mis-shapen rock that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the country (after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) bored and hollowed with incredible pains and industry, till they had wrought in it all those beautiful vaults and caverns into which it is divided at this day.  As soon as this rock was thus curiously scooped to their liking, a prodigious number of hands must have been employed in chipping the outside of it, which is now as smooth as polished marble;[5] and is in several places hewn out into pillars that stand like the trunks of so many trees bound about the top with garlands of leaves.  It is probable that when this great work was begun, which must have been many hundred years ago, there was some religion among this people; for they give it the name of a temple, and have a tradition that it was designed for men to pay their devotions in.