Society was much occupied during Alice's first season in London with
the upshot of an historical event of a common kind. England, a few
years before, had stolen a kingdom from a considerable people in
Africa, and seized the person of its king. The conquest proved
useless, troublesome, and expensive; and after repeated attempts to
settle the country on impracticable plans suggested to the Colonial
Office by a popular historian who had made a trip to Africa, and by
generals who were tired of the primitive remedy of killing the
natives, it appeared that the best course was to release the captive
king and get rid of the unprofitable booty by restoring it to him.
In order, however, that the impression made on him by England's
short-sighted disregard of her neighbor's landmark abroad might be
counteracted by a glimpse of the vastness of her armaments and
wealth at home, it was thought advisable to take him first to
London, and show him the wonders of the town. But when the king
arrived, his freedom from English prepossessions made it difficult
to amuse, or even to impress him. A stranger to the idea that a
private man could own a portion of the earth and make others pay him
for permission to live on it, he was unable to understand why such a
prodigiously wealthy nation should be composed partly of poor and
uncomfortable persons toiling incessantly to create riches, and
partly of a class that confiscated and dissipated the wealth thus
produced without seeming to be at all happier than the unfortunate
laborers at whose expense they existed. He was seized with strange
fears, first for his health, for it seemed to him that the air of
London, filthy with smoke, engendered puniness and dishonesty in