"
This speech was perfectly agreeable to Cacambo. A fondness for
roving, for making a figure in their own country, and for boasting
of what they had seen in their travels, was so powerful in our two
wanderers that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded
permission of the King to quit the country.
"You are about to do a rash and silly action," said the King. "I
am sensible my kingdom is an inconsiderable spot; but when people
are tolerably at their ease in any place, I should think it would be
to their interest to remain there. Most assuredly, I have no right
to detain you, or any strangers, against your wills; this is an act of
tyranny to which our manners and our laws are equally repugnant. All
men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to
depart whenever you please, but you will have many and great
difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers. It is impossible
to ascend that rapid river which runs under high and vaulted rocks,
and by which you were conveyed hither by a kind of miracle. The
mountains by which my kingdom are hemmed in on all sides, are ten
thousand feet high, and perfectly perpendicular; they are above ten
leagues across, and the descent from them is one continued precipice.
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