As to the navy, the war with Wug having shown the Uggard sailors to be immortal, their government knows not how to get rid of them, and remains a great sea power in spite of itself.  I ventured to suggest mustering out, but neither the King nor any Minister of State was able to form a conception of any method of reduction and retrenchment but that of the public headsman.

It is said—­I do not know with how much truth—­that the defeat of Wug was made easy by a certain malicious prevision of the Wuggards themselves:  something of the nature of heroic self-sacrifice, the surrender of a present advantage for a terrible revenge in the future.  As an instance, the commander of the fortified city already mentioned is reported to have ordered his garrison to kill as few of their assailants as possible.

“It is true,” he explained to his subordinates, who favored a defense to the death—­“it is true this will lose us the place, but there are other places; you have not thought of that.”

They had not thought of that.

“It is true, too, that we shall be taken prisoners, but”—­and he smiled grimly—­“we have fairly good appetites, and we must be fed.  That will cost something, I take it.  But that is not the best of it.  Look at that vast host of our enemies—­each one of them a future pensioner on a fool people.  If there is among us one man who would willingly deprive the Uggard treasury of a single dependent—­who would spare the Uggard pigs one gukwam of expense, let the traitor stand forth.”

No traitor stood forth, and in the ensuing battles the garrison, it is said, fired only blank cartridges, and such of the assailants as were killed incurred that mischance by falling over their own feet.

It is estimated by Wuggard statisticians that in twenty years from the close of the war the annual appropriation for pensions in Ug will amount to no less than one hundred and sixty gumdums to every enlisted man in the kingdom.  But they know not the Uggard customs of exterminating the army.

THE DOG IN GANEGWAG

A about the end of the thirty-seventh month of our voyage due south from Ug we sighted land, and although the coast appeared wild and inhospitable, the captain decided to send a boat ashore in search of fresh water and provisions, of which we were in sore need.  I was of the boat’s crew and thought myself fortunate in being able to set foot again upon the earth.  There were seven others in the landing party, including the mate, who commanded.

Selecting a sheltered cove, which appeared to be at the mouth of a small creek, we beached the boat, and leaving two men to guard it started inland toward a grove of trees.  Before we reached it an animal came out of it and advanced confidently toward us, showing no signs of either fear or hostility.  It was a hideous creature, not altogether like anything that we had ever seen, but on its close approach we