Chapter 39

Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself

An interval of silence was at last broken by Babbalanja.

Pointing to the sun, just gaining the horizon, he exclaimed, "As old
Bardianna says--shut your eyes, and believe."

"And what may Bardianna have to do with yonder orb?" said Media.

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