 of the Musical Banks, priests of religion, or what not, and carrying
their education with them they diffused a leaven of culture throughout the
country. I naturally questioned them about many of the things which had puzzled
me since my arrival. I inquired what was the object and meaning of the statues
which I had seen upon the plateau of the pass. I was told that they dated from a
very remote period, and that there were several other such groups in the
country, but none so remarkable as the one which I had seen. They had a
religious origin, having been designed to propitiate the gods of deformity and
disease. In former times it had been the custom to make expeditions over the
ranges, and capture the ugliest of Chowbok's ancestors whom they could find, in
order to sacrifice them in the presence of these deities, and thus avert
ugliness and disease from the Erewhonians themselves. It had been whispered (but
my informant assured me untruly) that centuries ago they had even offered up
some of their own people who were ugly or out of health, in order to make
examples of them; these detestable customs, however, had been long discontinued;
neither was there any present observance of the statues.
    I had the curiosity to inquire what would be done to any of Chowbok's tribe
if they crossed over into Erewhon. I was told that nobody knew, inasmuch as such
a thing had not happened for ages. They would be too ugly to be allowed to go at
large, but not so much so as to be criminally liable. Their offence in having
come would be a moral one; but they would be beyond the straightener's art.
Possibly they would be consigned to the Hospital for Incurable Bores, and made
to work at being bored for so many hours a day by the Erewhonian inhabitants of
the hospital, who are extremely impatient of one another's boredom, but would
soon die if they had no one whom they might bore - in fact, that they would be
kept as professional borees. When I heard this, it occurred to me that some
rumours of its substance might perhaps have become current among Chowbok's
people; for the agony of his fear had been too great to have been inspired by
the mere dread of being burnt alive before the statues.
    I also questioned them about the museum of old machines, and the cause of
the apparent retrogression in all arts, sciences, and inventions. I learnt that
about four hundred years previously, the state of mechanical knowledge was far
beyond our own, and was advancing with prodigious rapidity,
