【英文读物】Giphantia

【英文读物】GiphantiaUpon your hearing the other day Giphantia much praised by some friends, and those no ill judges, you expressed a desire to see it in English, as you had not, you said, French enough to read the original. I immediately resolved to gratify your desire, and that very day sat about the translation.It is now finished: and, as my hand is not very legible, I take the liberty to address it to you in print with this Epistle Dedicatory; which, as neither you, nor the Author, want any encomiums, nor the Translator any excuses, I shall cut short, and beg leave to subscribe myself with great respect and sincerity,Madam,Your most obedientand most humble servant,Feb. 5,1761.The Translator.GIPHANTIA. PART THE FIRST. 1 Introduction. No man ever had a stronger inclination for travelling than myself. I considerd the whole earth as my country, and all mankind as my brethren, and therefore thought it incumbent upon me to travel thro the earth and visit my brethren. I have walkd over the ruins of the antient world, have viewd the monuments of modern pride, and, at the sight of all-devouring time, have wept 2over both. I have often found great folly among the nations that pass for the most civilizd, and sometimes as great wisdom among those that are counted the most savage. I have seen small states supported by virtue, and mighty empires shaken by vice, whilst a mistaken policy has been employd to inrich the subjects, without any endeavours to render them virtuous.After having gone over the whole world and visited all the inhabitants, I find it does not answer the pains I have taken. I have just been reviewing my memoirs concerning the several nations, their prejudices, their customs and manners, their politicks, their laws, their religion, their history; and I have thrown them all into the fire. It grieves me to record such a monstrous mixture of humanity 3and barbarousness, of grandeur and meanness, of reason and folly.The small part, I have preservd, is what I am now publishing. If it has no other merit, certainly it has novelty to recommend it. CHAP. I. The Hurricane. I was on the borders of Guinea towards the desarts that bound it on the North. I contemplated the immense wilds, the very idea of which shocks the firmest mind. On a sudden I was seized with an ardent desire to penetrate into those desarts and see how far nature denies herself to mankind. Perhaps (said I) among these scorching plains there is some fertile spot unknown to the rest of the world. Perhaps I shall find men who have neither been polished nor corrupted by commerce with others.5In vain did I represent to myself the dangers and even the almost certain death to which such an enterprize would expose me; I could not drive the thought out of my head. One winters day (for it was in the dog-days) the wind being southwest, the sky clear, and the air temperate, furnished with something to asswage hunger and thirst, with a glass-mask to save my eyes from the clouds of sands, and with a compass to guide my steps, I sate out from the borders of Guinea and advanced into the desart.I went on two whole days without seeing any thing extraordinary: in the beginning of the third I perceived all around me nothing but a few almost sapless shrubs and some tufts of rushes, most of which were dried up by the heat 6of the sun. These are natures last productions in those barren regions; here her teeming virtue stops, nor can life be farther extended in those frightful solitudes.I had scarce continued my course two hours over a sandy soil, where the eye meets no object but scattered rocks, when the wind growing higher, began to put in motion the surface of the sands. At first, the sand only played about the foot of the rocks and formed small waves which lightly skimmed over the plain. Such are the little billows which are seen to rise and gently roll on the surface of the water when the sea begins to grow rough at the approach of a storm. The sandy waves soon became larger, dashed and broke one another; and I was exposed to the most dreadful of hurricanes.7Frequent whirlwinds arose, which collecting the sands carried them in rapid gyrations to a vast height with horrible whistlings. Instantly after, the sands, left to themselves, fell down in strait lines and formed mountains. Clouds of dust were mixed with the clouds of the atmosphere, and heaven and earth seemed jumbled together. Sometimes the thickness of the whirlwinds deprived me entirely of the light of the sun: and sometimes red transparent sands shone from afar: the air appeared in a blaze, and the sky seemed dissolved into sparks of fire.Mean time, now tossed into the air by a sudden gust of wind, and now hurled down by my own weight, I found myself one while in clouds of sand, and another while in a gulf. Every moment 8I should have been either buried or dashed in pieces, had not a benevolent Being (who will appear presently) protected me from all