My zeal has carried me farther than I should have imagined, added the Prefect; it is time to think of what concerns thee. The air of Giphantia is lively and full of active corpuscles; it keeps up the spirits; and, in spite of the fatigues, thou hast endured in the desart, it does not suffer thee to have the least sense of weariness, However, thou hast need of a more solid food. I have ordered thee a Repast, and I will regale thee after the manner of the elementary spirits.

We went out of the gallery; and the Prefect conducted me to a grotto, of which the architecture was so strange, that I dare not venture to describe it. The whole furniture was a marble table and a cane-chair, on which he bid me sit down.

Whatever I saw at Giphantia was extraordinary, the Repast to which I was invited was not less so. Thirty salt-sellers filled with salts of different colours, were placed on the table in a circle round a fruit, much like our melons. There was also a glass decanter full of water, round which other salt-sellers formed another circle.

These preparations were not very tempting; I never had less appetite. However, not to affront a host, to whom I was so much obliged, I tasted the fruit that he offered me. The purest chymical earth purged of all foreign matter, would have more taste. I forced myself to swallow a few bits. I drank a glass of water: And I told the Prefect, that my strength was more than sufficiently recruited, and if he pleased, we would continue to visit the rarities of Giphantia.

Thou hast had (said he) the complaisance to taste the fruit and the liquor, thou wilt farther oblige me to season them both. The salts which stand round them have, perhaps, more virtue than thou art aware of. I invite thee to try.

Upon these words, I viewed the salt-sellers more attentively, I saw that each had a label; and I read upon those that surrounded the insipid fruit, salt of woodcock, salt of quail, salt of wild-duck, salt of trout, &c. Upon the others, I read, concrete juice of Rhenish, of Champagne, of Burgundy, of Usquebaugh, of oil of Venus, of Citron, &c.

Having taken a small slice of the fruit, I spread upon it a grain of one of those salts; and putting it to my mouth I took it for the wing of an ortolan. I looked upon the salt-seller from whence I had the salt, and saw the word ortolan on the label. Astonished at this phÆnomenon, I spread upon another slice salt of turbot, and I thought I was eating one of the finest turbots the channel ever produced. I tried the same experiment upon the water; according to the salt I dissolved in it, I drank wine of Beaune, of Nuis, of Chambertin, &c.

My lord, (said I to the Prefect) you have shewn me the columns, the globe, the mirrour, the pictures; I have admired the mechanism of these masterpieces, and the wonderful skill of the elementary spirits; but now, my admiration is turned to desire. Is a mortal allowed to enter into the physical mysteries of the spirits? May I learn from you, this invaluable secret of your saline powders.

Now-a-days more than ever, (added I) men (especially the Babylonians) seek with eagerness whatever can please the senses; and one of the things which raises the greatest emulation, is to have a table covered with exquisite dainties. Their fore-fathers did not look upon a good cook as a person divine. The most simple preparations sufficed for their food: they thought no wines excelled those of their own country; and sometimes those good men made a little too free with them. The modern Babylonians disgusted at this simplicity, and hating hard drinking, have taken a different method. They are become sober, but of a sensual and ambitious sobriety, which, by unheard of extracts and mixtures, perpetually creates new tastes. They search in the smallest fibres of the animals for the purest substance, and, under the name of essences, they inclose in a little phial the produce of what would suffice for the nourishment of the most numerous families. The most exquisite wines cannot satisfy their palate; they esteem nothing but what is owing to a violence done to the order of nature’s productions. They extract the most active spirit of wine, and thereto add all the spices of India: And, with such liquors, seeds of fire, collected from all the countries of the world, flow in their veins.

You see (continued I) that with the secret of your savoury crystalizations, I should be able to satisfy the nicest palates, and please the most curious lovers of variety. But what is much more important, these saline extracts, which are not prepared by the pernicious arts of the distiller and cook, these extracts, I say, would not spoil the stomach in pleasing the taste; high health would revive among us; the primitive constitutions would be restored by degrees; and mankind would resume a new youthful vigour; in all respects, a man might be a glutton without danger, and, that is saying a great deal of a vice, which is become incorrigible.

I was not refused: In less than half an hour, the Prefect taught me the whole art; I actually resolve the savours, with the same ease that Newton did the colours. From all the fruits that go to decay, from all the plants of no use, from even the herbs of the field, in a word, from all bodies whatever, I extract all their savoury parts; I analyze these parts; I reduce them to their primitive particles; and then uniting them again in all imaginable proportions, I form saline powders, which give such a taste as is desired. I can inclose in a small snuff-box, wherewith to make in an instant a complete entertainment, courses, ragouts, fricassees, deserts, coffee, tea, with all kinds of wine and other liquors. From a single bit, though ever so insipid, I produce at pleasure the wing of a partridge, the thigh of a woodcock, the tongue of a carp, &c. From a decanter of water, I draw Tomar, Ai, Muscadine, Malmsey, Chian wine, Lacryma Christi, and a thousand others.

My secret should have been publick before now; but all the advantages accruing from it do not remove a fear, which, as will be seen, is surely not without foundation. I am apprehensive that certain gentlemen, incessantly busied to open new channels to convey to them the substance of the people, may lay their greedy hands upon my salt, and undertake to distribute it, charged with some light tax. These light taxes are known always to grow heavier, and end with crushing; much like those snow-balls, which, rolling down from the top of the mountains, and soon growing immensely large, root up trees, throw down houses, and destroy the fields. Let these gentlemen give in our newspapers, a positive assurance that they will never meddle with the management of my savours; the next day, I will publish my secret, distribute my powders, and regale all Babylon.

I think I know the world: these gentlemen, you will see, will keep silence, and I my salt, and so nobody will be regaled.