This much, my lord, the astronomers maintain that Mardi moves round the sun; which I, who never formally investigated the matter for myself, can by no means credit; unless, plainly seeing one thing, I blindly believe another.  Yet even thus blindly does all Mardi subscribe to an astronomical system, which not one in fifty thousand can astronomically prove.  And not many centuries back, my lord, all Mardi did equally subscribe to an astronomical system, precisely the reverse of that which they now believe.  But the mass of Mardians have not as much reason to believe the first system, as the exploded one; for all who have eyes must assuredly see, that the sun seems to move, and that Mardi seems a fixture, eternally here.  But doubtless there are theories which may be true, though the face of things belie them.  Hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem more natural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony of their own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis.  And thus, my lord, is it, that the masts of Mardians do not believe because they know, but because they know not.  And they are as ready to receive one thing as another, if it comes from a canonical source.  My lord, Mardi is as an ostrich, which will swallow augh you offer, even a bar of iron, if placed endwise.  And though the iron be indigestible, yet it serves to fill:  in feeding, the end proposed.  For Mardi must have something to exercise its digestion, though that something be forever indigestible.  And as fishermen for sport, throw two lumps of bait, united by a cord, to albatrosses floating on the sea; which are greedily attempted to be swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the other by that; but forever are kept reciprocally going up and down in them, by means of the cord; even so, my lord, do I sometimes fancy, that our theorists divert them-selves with the greediness of Mardians to believe.”

“Ha, ha,” cried Media, “methinks this must be Azzageddi who speaks.”

“No, my lord; not long since, Azzageddi received a furlough to go home and warm himself for a while.  But this leaves me not alone.”

“How?”

“My lord,—­for the present putting Azzageddi entirely aside,—­though I have now been upon terms of close companionship with myself for nigh five hundred moons, I have not yet been able to decide who or what I am.  To you, perhaps, I seem Babbalanja; but to myself, I seem not myself.  All I am sure of, is a sort of prickly sensation all over me, which they call life; and, occasionally, a headache or a queer conceit admonishes me, that there is something astir in my attic.  But how know I, that these sensations are identical with myself?  For aught I know, I may be somebody else.  At any rate, I keep an eye on myself, as I would on a stranger.  There is something going on in me, that is independent of me.  Many a time, have I willed to do one thing, and another has been done.  I will not say by myself, for I was not consulted about