My master, continuing his discourse, said, “there was nothing that rendered the _Yahoos_ more odious, than their undistinguishing appetite to devour every thing that came in their way, whether herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all mingled together: and it was peculiar in their temper, that they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth, at a greater distance, than much better food provided for them at home. If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to burst; after which, nature had pointed out to them a certain root that gave them a general evacuation.

“There was also another kind of root, very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be found, which the _Yahoos_ sought for with much eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced in them the same effects that wine has upon us. It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep in the mud.”

I did indeed observe that the _Yahoos_ were the only animals in this country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute. Neither has their language any more than a general appellation for those maladies, which is borrowed from the name of the beast, and called _hnea-yahoo_, or _Yahoo’s evil_; and the cure prescribed is a mixture of their own dung and urine, forcibly put down the _Yahoo’s_ throat. This I have since often known to have been taken with success, and do here freely recommend it to my countrymen for the public good, as an admirable specific against all diseases produced by repletion.

“As to learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like,” my master confessed, “he could find little or no resemblance between the _Yahoos_ of that country and those in ours; for he only meant to observe what parity there was in our natures. He had heard, indeed, some curious _Houyhnhnms_ observe, that in most herds there was a sort of ruling _Yahoo_ (as among us there is generally some leading or principal stag in a park), who was always more deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the rest; that this leader had usually a favourite as like himself as he could get, whose employment was to lick his master’s feet and posteriors, and drive the female _Yahoos_ to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded with a piece of ass’s flesh. This favourite is hated by the whole herd, and therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the person of his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor, at the head of all the _Yahoos_ in that district, young and old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their excrements upon him from head to foot. But how far this might be applicable to our courts, and favourites, and ministers of state, my master said I could best determine.”