Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/224

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216
THE DEMON OF THE GREAT LAKE

and constantly growing in dignity, and in the respect of all classes of beings, human and otherwise. It was his intention to lay before them, through his responsible advisers and other experienced members of this honourable house' several very important measures, which, if they met with its approval, and became law, would conduce in no small degree to the extension of the boundaries, and increase of the power, of the empire. The most important of these he would take the liberty of alluding to, although it might be somewhat unconstitutional. He would explain, for their satisfaction, that in doing so he had no wish or intention to influence their weighty deliberations, or interfere with their highly-valued freedom of debate. Many years ago, in his numerous journeys to and fro, on business of importance, from his present subterranean city up to the surface of the world, which was inhabited and dominated by the human race, among whom he had very many, he might say millions, of warm admirers and staunch adherents, it struck him very forcibly that it would be a very great improvement, and an enormous stride in the right direction, if a large city were built on the outside of the world—a city of their own building—capable of containing all the inhabitants of this which they possessed below ground, and many millions more. In all his wanderings hither and thither, and in his aerial flights in his lightning balloon, this idea had grown to something like maturity, and he had of late years even gone so far as to select a suitable site, by anticipation, for this new city. He had—and he said it modestly—with his proverbially superior and taste, selected one in a strange and far-off island, called affectionately by its inhabitants Tasmania. It is in their Lake country, as they call it, and they are particularly proud of it, and he thought a better or finer site could not be chosen in the whole world. The grandest of the lakes, which is called the Great Lake, is one hundred