Regent and invested with almost dictatorial powers.  He at once distributed nearly the whole army among the seaport cities, and whenever a Stronagu trading proa attempted to land, the soldiery, assisted by the populace, rushed down to the beach, and with a terrible din of gongs and an insupportable discharge of stink-pots—­the only offensive weapon known to Tortirran warfare—­drove the laden vessels to sea, or if they persisted in anchoring destroyed them and smothered their crews in mud.  The Tortirrans themselves not being a sea-going people, all communication between them and the rest of their little world soon ceased.  But with it ceased the prosperity of Tortirra.  Deprived of a market for their surplus products and compelled to forego the comforts and luxuries which they had obtained from abroad, the people began to murmur at the effect of their own folly.  A reaction set in, a powerful opposition to Pragam and his policy was organized, and he was driven from power.

But the noxious tree that Pragam had planted in the fair garden of his country’s prosperity had struck root too deeply to be altogether eradicated.  It threw up shoots everywhere, and no sooner was one cut down than from roots underrunning the whole domain of political thought others sprang up with a vigorous and baleful growth.  While the dictum that trade is piracy no longer commands universal acceptance, a majority of the populace still hold a modified form of it, and that “importation is theft” is to-day a cardinal political “principle” of a vast body of Tortirra’s people.  The chief expounders and protagonists of this doctrine are all directly or indirectly engaged in making or growing such articles as were formerly got by exchange with the Stronagu traders.  The articles are generally inferior in quality, but consumers, not having the benefit of foreign competition, are compelled to pay extortionate prices for them, thus maintaining the unscrupulous producers in needless industries and a pernicious existence.  But these active and intelligent rogues are too powerful to be driven out.  They persuade their followers, among whom are many ignorant consumers, that this vestigial remnant of the old Pragam policy is all that keeps the nation from being desolated by small-pox and an epidemic of broken legs.  It is impossible within these limits to give a full history of the strange delusion whose origin I have related.  It has undergone many modifications and changes, as it is the nature of error to do, but the present situation is about this.  The trading proas of the Stronagu are permitted to enter certain ports, but when one arrives she must anchor at a little distance from shore.  Here she is boarded by an officer of the government, who ascertains the thickness of her keel, the number of souls on board and the amount and character of the merchandise she brings.  From these data—­the last being the main factor in the problem—­the officer computes her unworthiness and adjudges a suitable penalty.