Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia | Page 9

man,' said he, 'is the stock with which you must
negotiate. I began with less than a fifth part, and you see how diligence
and parsimony have increased it. This is your own, to waste or improve.
If you squander it by negligence or caprice, you must wait for my death
before you will be rich; if in four years you double your stock, we will
thenceforward let subordination cease, and live together as friends and
partners, for he shall be always equal with me who is equally skilled in
the art of growing rich.'
"We laid out our money upon camels, concealed in bales of cheap
goods, and travelled to the shore of the Red Sea. When I cast my eye on
the expanse of waters, my heart bounded like that of a prisoner escaped.
I felt an inextinguishable curiosity kindle in my mind, and resolved to
snatch this opportunity of seeing the manners of other nations, and of
learning sciences unknown in Abyssinia.
"I remembered that my father had obliged me to the improvement of
my stock, not by a promise, which I ought not to violate, but by a
penalty, which I was at liberty to incur; and therefore determined to
gratify my predominant desire, and, by drinking at the fountain of
knowledge, to quench the thirst of curiosity.
"As I was supposed to trade without connection with my father, it was
easy for me to become acquainted with the master of a ship, and
procure a passage to some other country. I had no motives of choice to
regulate my voyage. It was sufficient for me that, wherever I wandered,
I should see a country which I had not seen before. I therefore entered a
ship bound for Surat, having left a letter for my father declaring my
intention."
CHAPTER IX
--THE HISTORY OF IMLAC (continued).

"When I first entered upon the world of waters, and lost sight of land, I
looked round about me in pleasing terror, and thinking my soul
enlarged by the boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze around
me for ever without satiety; but in a short time I grew weary of looking
on barren uniformity, where I could only see again what I had already
seen. I then descended into the ship, and doubted for awhile whether all
my future pleasures would not end, like this, in disgust and
disappointment. 'Yet surely,' said I, 'the ocean and the land are very
different. The only variety of water is rest and motion. But the earth has
mountains and valleys, deserts and cities; it is inhabited by men of
different customs and contrary opinions; and I may hope to find variety
in life, though I should miss it in nature.'
"With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused myself during the
voyage, sometimes by learning from the sailors the art of navigation,
which I have never practised, and sometimes by forming schemes for
my conduct in different situations, in not one of which I have been ever
placed.
"I was almost weary of my naval amusements when we safely landed at
Surat. I secured my money and, purchasing some commodities for
show, joined myself to a caravan that was passing into the inland
country. My companions, for some reason or other, conjecturing that I
was rich, and, by my inquiries and admiration, finding that I was
ignorant, considered me as a novice whom they had a right to cheat,
and who was to learn, at the usual expense, the art of fraud. They
exposed me to the theft of servants and the exaction of officers, and
saw me plundered upon false pretences, without any advantage to
themselves but that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own
knowledge."
"Stop a moment," said the Prince; "is there such depravity in man as
that he should injure another without benefit to himself? I can easily
conceive that all are pleased with superiority; but your ignorance was
merely accidental, which, being neither your crime nor your folly,
could afford them no reason to applaud themselves; and the knowledge

which they had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually have
shown by warning as betraying you."
"Pride," said Imlac, "is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very
mean advantages, and envy feels not its own happiness but when it may
be compared with the misery of others. They were my enemies because
they grieved to think me rich, and my oppressors because they
delighted to find me weak."
"Proceed," said the Prince; "I doubt not of the facts which you relate,
but imagine that you impute them to mistaken motives."
"In this company," said Imlac, "I arrived at Agra, the capital of
Hindostan, the city in which the Great Mogul commonly resides. I
applied myself