ordinary Brahmin. "What do you think of the government of the Great
Mogul?" asked the councillor.

"I think it abominable," answered the Brahmin. "How can you expect a
state to be happily governed by the Tartars? Our rajahs, our omrahs, our
nabobs, are very content, but the citizens are hardly so; and millions
of citizens are something."

Reasoning, the councillor and the Brahmin traversed the whole of Upper
Asia. "I make the observation," said the Brahmin, "that there is not one
republic in all this vast part of the world."

"Formerly there was the republic of Tyre," said the councillor, "but it
did not last long; there was still another one in the direction of
Arabia Petrea, in a little corner called Palestine, if one can honour
with the name of republic a horde of thieves and usurers sometimes
governed by judges, sometimes by a species of kings, sometimes by
grand-pontiffs, become slave seven or eight times, and finally driven
out of the country which it had usurped."

"I imagine," said the Brahmin, "that one ought to find very few
republics on the earth. Men are rarely worthy of governing themselves.
This happiness should belong only to little peoples who hide themselves
in islands, or among the mountains, like rabbits who shun carnivorous
beasts; but in the long run they are discovered and devoured."

When the two travellers reached Asia Minor, the councillor said to the
Brahmin: "Would you believe that a republic was formed in a corner of
Italy, which lasted more than five hundred years, and which owned Asia
Minor, Asia, Africa, Greece, Gaul, Spain and the whole of Italy?"