64 



physical difficulties of the Straits, these people impede the 

 passage hy sunken boats and chains, and then capture the 

 unfortunate vessels -which attempt to go through. 



In Phenacia (the other division) there is plenty of law — 

 but no justice or honesty. In fact, lawyers swarm in all 

 directions ; and for the education of astrologers there are 

 many colleges. This country appears to have been visited 

 by the old historians Herodotus and Pliny — and in modern 

 times by certain French and Flemish writers, as 'well by a 

 detachment of Jesuits, who had been permitted by the 

 natives to settle and erect habitations. The author confesses 

 that he had himself built a house in this Land of Imposture 

 and Deceit, from which he issued forth his notions and 

 prognostications on the Signs of the Times. 



What the Larcinians accomplish in open day by violence, 

 the Phenacians effect privately by fraud. They abominate 

 the light of the sun, and worship the moon as the most 

 benignant of deities. All the day, therefore, they sleep, and 

 transact their business during the night. The very trees of 

 this country are naturally so viscid, that the birds perching 

 on their treacherous branches, stick to them, and become 

 an easy prey to the by-passers. Their grand emporium is 

 called Bolsecium,* in which are two much-frequented streets 

 or places. The first of these — called Palatium — is the great 

 resort of lawyers, who are here as numerous as at West- 

 minster, and are constantly getting up suits, if they have 

 them not already. In fact, the number of law-suits increases 

 so much every day, that the whole province is likely before 

 long to be divided among the lawyers. When this is done, 

 they can only worry and prey upon one another. Their 

 servants are clothed in a sort of two-coloured or shot livery, 

 intended to intimate that the masters are ready to take either 

 side of a cause indifferently. At present, a most fertile 



* Cut-purse totfn. 



