ianity as distinct from civilizatio

Onal policy. But blue as the sky seemed, there was a cloud, and a big
one, on the horizon. We had indeed heard no more of those confounded
hippopotami, but it is not
on that account to
be supposed that our sacrilege was forgotten, or the enmity of the
great and powerful priesthood headed by

Agon appeased. On the contrary, it was burning the more fiercely
because it was necessarily suppressed, and what had perhaps begun in
bigotry was ending in downright direct hatred born of jealousy.
Hitherto, the priests had been the wise men of the land, and were on
this account, as well as from superstitious causes, looked on with
peculiar veneration. But our arrival, with our outlandish wisdom and
our strange inventions and hints of unimagined things, dealt a
serious blow to this state of affairs, and, among the educated
Zu-Vendi, went far towards destroying
the priestly
prestige. A still worse affront to them, however, was the favour with
which we were regarded, and the trust that
was reposed in us. All these things tended to make us excessively
obnoxious
to the great sacerdotal clan, the most powerful because
the most united faction in the kingdom.