Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/354

328 an appointment with a friend and his family to come to his house, upon some affair of importance; on the day fixed, the mistress and her two children came very late; she made two excuses, first for her husband, who as she said, happened that very morning to lhnuwnh. The word is strongly expressive in their language, but not easily rendered into English; it signifies, 'to retire to his first mother.' Her excuse for not coming sooner was, that her husband dying late in the morning, she was a good while consulting her servants about a convenient place where his body should be laid; and I observed, she behaved herself at our house as cheerfully as the rest: she died about three months after.

They live generally to seventy, or seventy-five years, very seldom to fourscore: some weeks before their death, they feel a gradual decay; but without pain. During this time they are much visited by their friends, because they cannot go abroad with their usual ease and satisfaction. However, about ten days before their death, which they seldom fail in computing, they return the visits that have been made them by those, who are nearest in the neighbourhood, being carried in a convenient sledge drawn by yahoos; which vehicle they use, not only upon this occasion, but when they grow old, upon long journies, or when they are lamed by any accident. And therefore when the dying Houyhnhnms return those visits, they take a solemn leave of their friends, as if they wetewere [sic] going to some remote part of the country, where they designed to pass the rest of their lives.

I know not whether it may be worth observing, that the Houyhnhnms have no word in their guage