QUEENS OF FORMICA, 111 



is forthwith consigned to the charge of a compatriot slave -nurse, 

 who though ignorant perhaps as the precious innocent itself, 

 that the ties of country, or even of family, unite them, fondles, 

 feeds, and fashions it for the benefit of their common owner, 

 into just such another patient, busy fac-totum as herself. 



The government of all the Formican states, whether slave- 

 making or otherwise, is, properly, republican ; yet one sovereign 

 lady, sometimes two, sometimes even a triumvirate of queens, 

 receive their homage. And truly no monarchs obtain or could 

 desire a greater show of humbly devoted loyalty : each royal 

 personage has her court, and is surrounded by her courtiers, 

 effeminate princes whispering soft nothings into her satiate ear, 

 mail-clad Amazons attending as her body-guard, while in her 

 royal progresses, she is followed by admiring crowds; but as to 

 real political power, king or queen Log may boast as much. In 

 short, possessing an ample share of its honours and its pleasures, 

 the chief business of royalty w-ith the female sovereigns 

 of the states of Formica, consists in supplying a numerous 

 progeny, not merely to be provided for by the nation, but 

 to keep up what would, otherwise, be its failing population. 



On a certain day of a certain year, the Amazonian chieftains 

 of Eufia, one of the slave-making states of Formica, assembled to 

 concert a plan of operation for a new campaign or marauding 

 expedition. Some people might suppose that they had already 

 settled, or that they would settle beforehand, upon some decent 

 pretext for attacking their peaceful neighbours, a matter which 



VOL. i. H 



