Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

23 The Fourth Personal Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth

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“Well then, my boy, when after this catastrophe, a number of the surviving beings, members of that great learned society, gradually came together again, they, no longer having their native country, first settled together with most of the other surviving beings in the center of the continent Grabontzi, but later, when they had, on the continent Grabontzi, ‘come to themselves’ a little after the ‘cataclysm not according to law,’ which had occurred, they decided jointly to try to re-establish, and perhaps to continue to actualize in practice, all those tasks which had formed the basis of their last society.

“As the manifestations of those abnormal conditions of being-existence of most of the three-brained beings there which had already been established before the catastrophe had by this time already begun to ‘boil’ furiously on the said part of the surface of the continent Grabontzi, these surviving members of the society Akhaldan looked for another place on the same continent for their permanent existence more suitable for this work of theirs which demanded complete separateness.

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“Such a suitable place they found in the valley of the large river flowing on the north of the said continent and there indeed they all migrated together with their families to continue in isolation the attainment of the tasks set by their society.

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“This entire region, through which the said large river flowed, they first named ‘Sakronakari.’

“But this name was afterwards several times changed and at the present time this region is called ‘Egypt’ while the said large river, then called ‘Nipilhooatchi,’ is now, as I have already said, called the Nile.

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“Soon after certain former members of the learned society Akhaldan had settled on this part of the surface of the planet Earth, all the beings of our tribe, who then existed on the surface of that planet which has taken your fancy, migrated to the same place.

“And the relations of our tribe with that part of your planet and also with the first migration there of the chance surviving former members of the society Akhaldan were as follows:

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“I told you once that just before the second ‘Transapalnian perturbation’ our Party-Pythoness, while prophesying, insisted that all the beings of our tribe should, without delay, migrate for the continuation of their existence on that planet, to a definite part of the surface of that same continent now called Africa.

“This definite part of the surface of the continent which the Pythoness indicated, lay just at the source of the said large river Nipilhooatchi where the beings of our tribe existed all the time the said second Transapalnian perturbation lasted, as well as later when everything had gradually resumed its relatively normal state and when most of the surviving beings had then almost forgotten what had happened and had again formed—just as if nothing had occurred to them—one of their famous ‘centers of culture’ in the very center of that future Africa. And it was just when the former members of the society Akhaldan were searching for a suitable place for their permanent existence, that they chanced to meet a number of the beings of our tribe who advised them to migrate to the country further down the said river.