Every fourth year, at the vernal equinox, there is
a representative council of the whole nation, which
meets in a plain about twenty miles from our house,
and continues about five or six days. Here they
inquire into the state and condition of the several
districts; whether they abound or be deficient in
hay or oats, or cows, or Yahoos; and wherever there
is any want (which is but seldom) it is immediately
supplied by unanimous consent and contribution.
Here likewise the regulation of children is settled:
as for instance, if a Houyhnhnm has two males, he
changes one of them with another that has two females;
and when a child has been lost by any casualty, where
the mother is past breeding, it is determined what
family in the district shall breed another to supply
the loss.
[A grand debate at the general assembly of the Houyhnhnms,
and how it was determined. The learning of the
Houyhnhnms. Their buildings. Their manner
of burials. The defectiveness of their language.]
One of these grand assemblies was held in my time,
about three months before my departure, whither my
master went as the representative of our district.
In this council was resumed their old debate, and
indeed the only debate that ever happened in their
country; whereof my master, after his return, give
me a very particular account.
The question to be debated was, “whether the
Yahoos should be exterminated from the face of the
earth?” One of the members for the affirmative
offered several arguments of great strength and weight,
alleging, “that as the Yahoos were the most filthy,
noisome, and deformed animals which nature ever produced,
so they were the most restive and indocible, mischievous
and malicious; they would privately suck the teats
of the Houyhnhnms’ cows, kill and devour their
cats, trample down their oats and grass, if they were
not continually watched, and commit a thousand other
extravagancies.” He took notice of a general
tradition, “that Yahoos had not been always
in their country; but that many ages ago, two of these
brutes appeared together upon a mountain; whether
produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud
and slime, or from the ooze and froth of the sea,
was never known; that these Yahoos engendered, and
their brood, in a short time, grew so numerous as
to overrun and infest the whole nation; that the Houyhnhnms,
to get rid of this evil, made a general hunting, and
at last enclosed the whole herd; and destroying the
elder, every Houyhnhnm kept two young ones in a kennel,
and brought them to such a degree of tameness, as
an animal, so savage by nature, can be capable of
acquiring, using them for draught and carriage; that
there seemed to be much truth in this tradition, and
that those creatures could not be yinhniamshy (or
aborigines of the land), because of the violent hatred
the Houyhnhnms, as well as all other animals, bore
them, which, although their evil disposition sufficiently
