"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