King Matt the First

by Janusz Korczak

  “Don’t forget about bears,” said the man who sold bears. “I can sell you four regular bears and two polar bears.”

  All the men who sold wild animals were brave hunters; one of them was a real Indian, and two of them were black. The children came from every part of the capital to gaze at the traders and were happy that their king was buying so many interesting animals for them.

  One day another black man came to the meeting. He looked less civilized than the other two. They wore regular clothes and spoke European languages; they lived some of the time in Africa and some of the time in Europe. But this black man did not say a single word you could understand; he wore practically no clothes, had on a necklace made of shells, and had so many decorations made of bone in his hair that it was hard to believe anyone’s neck could support that much weight.

  In Matt’s country there was one very old professor who knew fifty different languages, and Matt sent for him to translate what the man was saying. Because the other black men could not understand him, or maybe they didn’t want to translate for him, so as not to hurt their own business.

  The black prince—yes, he was a African prince—said: “Oh, King Matt, you are great as the baobab tree, mighty as the sea, swift as lightning, and bright as the sun. I bring you the friendship of my sovereign, may he live seven thousand years and have one hundred thousand great-great-grandsons. In his forests my sovereign has more wild animals than there are stars in the sky or ants in an anthill. Our lions eat more people in one day than the royal court does in a month. And the royal court is made up of the king, his hundred wives, and his thousand children, may they all live five thousand years. Magnificent King Matt, don’t trust these tricksters who have toothless lions, tigers without claws, old elephants, and painted birds. My monkeys are smarter than theirs, and my king’s love for you, Matt, is even greater than their stupidity. They want money from you, but my king needs no gold because his mountains are full of gold. All he wants is for you to let him come here and be your guest for two weeks, because he is very curious to visit your land. The kings of Europe will not invite him because they say that he is a savage and it does not behoove them to be friends with him. If you went to visit him, King Matt, you’d see for yourself that everything I say is the pure truth.”

  The wild-animal traders saw that things had taken a bad turn, and so they said: “Does Your Royal Highness know that this man is an envoy from the land of the cannibals? We advise Your Royal Highness not to go visit them or let them come here.”

  Matt told the professor to ask the envoy if his king was really a cannibal.

  “Oh, King Matt, bright as the sun, I said that the lions in our forests eat more people in one day than the whole royal court in a month. I will tell you only one thing, oh King Matt, white as the sand, my king will not eat you or any of your subjects. My king is hospitable and would rather eat all his hundred wives and his thousand children, may they all live five thousand years, than gnaw off even one finger of your hand.”

  “All right,” said Matt, “I’ll go.”

  The wild-animal traders left immediately, angry that their deals had fallen through.

  THE PRIME MINISTER returned home in such a bad mood that his wife was even afraid to ask him what happened. The Prime Minister ate his dinner without saying a word. His children were very quiet, so they wouldn’t be spanked. The Prime Minister usually drank a glass of vodka before dinner but only drank wine with his meal. That day, he pushed the wine aside and drank five glasses of vodka.

  “My dear husband,” his wife began timidly, so as not to make him even angrier. “I can see that there’s been more trouble at the palace. All this is ruining your health.”

  “It’s unheard of I” the Prime Minister finally burst out. “Do you know what Matt is doing now?”

  His wife sighed deeply.

  “Do you know what Matt is doing now? He’s going to visit the king of the cannibals! Can you believe it? Cannibals! No European king has ever been there. Can you believe it? They’ll eat Matt, no question of that. I’m at my wit’s end.”

  “Isn’t there any way of talking him out of it?”

  “Try if you want to, but I have no intention of going to jail again. Matt is a stubborn, foolish boy.”

  “All right, but what would happen if, God forbid, the cannibals did eat Matt?”

  “Use your head, woman. Our country is going to be a democracy soon. The king has to sign a paper called a manifesto, and then the parliament will be opened with great ceremony. Who will sign the manifesto, who will open the parliament, if Matt is inside some savage’s belly? They can eat him a year from now, but Matt must remain here until everything is finished.”

  The ministers had another problem: it was not fitting to let Matt make such a dangerous journey alone, but no one wanted to go with him.

  Meanwhile, Matt was making serious preparations for his journey.

  The news spread throughout the city that the king was going to travel to the land of the cannibals. The grownups shook their heads, but the children were very envious of Matt.

  “Your Highness,” said the doctor. “To be eaten by cannibals is bad for your health. They’ll probably want to roast Your Royal Highness on a spit and cut off the white meat right away, so Your Royal Highness—”

  “My dear doctor,” said Matt. “I have already come close to being beaten, shot, and hanged, but I got out of it one way or the other. Maybe the cannibal prince is telling the truth, maybe they are hospitable people and won’t cook me. I’ve already made up my mind and given my promise, and kings must keep their word.”

  The captain also tried to persuade Matt not to go through with it. “It’s hot there, you’ll have to travel two weeks on camelback. There are all kinds of diseases in those countries that you could die from. Besides, you can’t trust cannibals, they’re treacherous. I know, I fought against them.”

  Matt agreed that his journey would be dangerous but continued with his preparations.

  Matt had to have a zoo in his capital city. He had to bring back lots of lions, tigers, elephants, and monkeys of every sort. A king had to do his duty.

  The African prince requested that Matt hurry, because he could not live without human flesh for more than a week. He had secretly brought a barrel of salted flesh with him and had been taking nibbles from it every so often. Now his supply was starting to run out, and so he wanted to get going.

  It was decided that the old professor who knew fifty languages and the captain would travel with Matt. Stash and Helenka couldn’t go, because their mother was too afraid for them. But then, at the last moment, Felek and the doctor joined the group.

  The doctor did not know about African diseases and so he brought along a thick book on those diseases in his suitcase, which was full of all the medicines they might need. Just as they were leaving, an English sailor and a French traveler came to ask Matt if they could accompany him.

  None of them took much baggage, because they wouldn’t need warm clothing, and besides, camels can’t carry lots of suitcases.

  They boarded the train, and off they went. They rode and rode and rode, until they reached the sea. There they embarked on a ship and sailed away. A big storm overtook them at sea, and everyone got seasick. This was the first time the doctor used his medicines.

  The doctor was very angry about the trip. “What good is it being the royal doctor?” he complained to the ship’s captain. “If I were a regular doctor, I could sit in a comfortable office and walk to the hospital. But this way I have to wander all over the world. And besides, to be eaten at my age would be very unpleasant.”

  On the other hand, the captain grew more cheerful every day. The trip made him remember running away from home, joining the Foreign Legion, and fighting African tribes. He had been young and very jolly then.

  Felek was the happiest of them all. “When you went to see the European kings, you only took the captain’s fancy children, not me. But when you go to see the cannibals, Felek
is the only one by your side.”

  “My dear Felek,” said Matt, feeling embarrassed, “you were not invited by the foreign kings. It would have been against etiquette to bring you. Stash and Helenka wanted to come with me this time, but their mother wouldn’t let them.”

  “I’m not mad,” said Felek.

  When their ship arrived in port, they boarded another train and traveled for two more days. Then palm trees, date and fig trees, and beautiful banana trees came into view. Matt kept squealing with glee. But the black prince only smiled, flashing his white teeth, which was somehow frightening.

  “This is not the African forest. Later on, you’ll see what a real forest is.”

  But it wasn’t a forest they came to. It was a desert.

  Nothing but sand and more sand. An ocean of sand.

  In the last village before the desert, there was a detachment of white soldiers and a couple of stores belonging to white people. Matt told them that they were travelers going to the land of the cannibals.

  “Go if you want to. Many people have gone there, but we don’t remember anyone coming back.”

  “But maybe we’ll succeed,” said Matt.

  “Well, don’t say we didn’t warn you. Those are very savage people you’re going to visit.”

  The black prince bought three camels and rode on ahead to get everything ready, telling them to wait until he returned.

  “Listen,” said the officer of the little garrison. “You can’t fool me. I know what’s what. You’re not ordinary travelers. You’ve got two little boys and an old man traveling with you. And that savage who came with you must be some sort of very important person. Only members of the royal family can wear shells like the one he had in his nose.”

  They saw no reason to hide the truth and told the officer everything. The officer had already heard of Matt from the mail and newspapers they received every couple of months.

  “Well, that’s another story, then. Maybe you will succeed. I do have to admit they are very hospitable. And I’ll tell you one thing—either you’ll never come back or you’ll be given an awful lot of presents, because they have so much gold and diamonds that they don’t know what to do with it all. They’ll give you a couple of handfuls of gold for any silly old thing—a little gunpowder, a mirror, a pipe.”

  The travelers’ mood improved. The old professor spent all day out in the sun lying on the sand because the doctor had told him that this was very good for the legs and the professor’s legs had been bothering him. In the evening, he would go to the black people’s huts, talk with them, and write down their language, which had never been recorded before.

  Felek ate so much fruit that the doctor had to give him a spoonful of castor oil from his first-aid kit. Sometimes the Englishman and the Frenchman would take Matt out hunting. Matt also learned how to ride a camel. They all had a very nice time.

  THEN, ONE NIGHT, a black servant came rushing, terrified, into their tent, shouting that they had been betrayed and were about to be attacked.

  “I should never have gone to work for white people. My own people won’t forgive me for that, they’ll kill me. Oh, poor me, what will I do now?” said the servant.

  They all leaped from their cots, grabbed whatever weapons they had, and looked outside.

  The night was dark. Nothing could be seen. Far away on the desert, a huge mass of people was approaching, making a great hubbub. Oddly enough, none of the soldiers had started shooting. The garrison seemed peaceful and quiet.

  The garrison commander knew the customs of the savage tribes well and had realized at once that it was not an attack. But because he did not know what was going on, he sent a messenger to find out.

  It was a caravan coming for King Matt.

  The caravan was led by an enormous royal camel with a beautiful little booth on its back. It was followed by a hundred more, beautifully decorated camels. And there were many men on foot, cannibal soldiers guarding the caravan. What would have happened if the officer of the garrison had not been so experienced? He might have started shooting, and that would have made for a massacre. Matt thanked him warmly for being so wise, awarded him a medal, and the first thing next day they set out on their way.

  The terrible heat made it a very hard journey. The natives were used to the scorching heat, but the white people could barely breathe.

  Matt rode in the little booth. Two cannibals fanned him with large fans made of ostrich feathers. The caravan moved slowly, and the leader kept looking around anxiously to see if any whirlwinds were coming, those awful winds that fling hot sand on travelers. There had been cases of entire caravans being covered in sand, with everyone dying.

  No one said a word all day, and the white people only started feeling a little better in the cool of the evening. The doctor gave Matt some cooling powders, but they didn’t help very much. Matt had been tempered by the war and been through many a rough spot, but that journey was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. His head ached, his lips were swollen, his tongue felt like wood. His skin became dark and dry; the white sand irritated his eyes, and there were red, itchy sores all over his body. Matt slept badly; he kept having terrible nightmares that the cannibals were eating him or burning him at the stake. Oh, water was much better than sand, it was so much nicer to travel by ship. But what could he do, he couldn’t go back, people would laugh at him.

  Twice they stopped at oases. What a pleasure it was to see green trees again and drink cool water, not that nasty, warm, smelly water they’d been drinking from animal-skin pouches.

  They stopped for two days at the first oasis, and they had to spend five whole days at the second, because even the camels were so tired they couldn’t go a step farther.

  “Only four more sunrises and sunsets in the desert and we’ll be there,” said the cannibal prince happily.

  They got a good rest in those five days. Before they left, the cannibals felt so happy that they built a fire and danced a terribly wild war dance.

  The last four days of the journey were not as hard, because the desert was coming to an end. The sand wasn’t as hot, and now there were even a few bushes. One time they spotted some people.

  Matt wanted to make their acquaintance but was told not to, because they were desert robbers. The robbers didn’t attack the caravan because it was so large, but they would have gladly if there had been fewer travelers.

  At last!

  Now a forest could be seen in the distance, and they could feel a damp forest coolness in the air. Their journey was over, but no one knew what awaited them now. They had avoided death on the burning sands but still might perish at the hands of savages.

  Things got off to a wonderful start. The king of the cannibals and his entire court came riding out to meet them. Musicians walked out ahead, but they made a terrible, ear-splitting racket. Their trumpets were animal horns, their flutes were made of bone, and they used kettles for drums. A terrible racket. And they were also screaming and yelling, which, after the silence of the desert, was enough to drive a person out of his mind.

  The welcoming ceremony began with a religious service. They set up a huge wooden statue with frightening animal faces carved on it. The witch doctor was wearing a frightening mask, too. They all started shouting again, and the translator said that the king of the cannibals was putting Matt under the protection of his gods.

  When Matt got down from his camel, after the service, the king and all his sons began doing somersaults in the air and jumping up and down. That went on for half an hour, and then the king made a speech to Matt.

  “Oh, my white friend who is brighter than the sun, I thank you for coming. To see you makes me the happiest person in the world. Please, I beg you, make one little signal with your hand and I will bury this great sword in my heart and then I will have the highest honor of all—to be eaten by my own guest.”

  Through his translator, Matt said that he did not want that in the least, that he wanted to make friends with the king, to tal
k with him and enjoy his company, not eat him.

  Then the king, his hundred wives, and all his children began to weep loudly and crawl around on all fours and make sad little back somersaults. This meant that their white friend looked down on them and didn’t love them because he didn’t want to eat them and might even think they weren’t tasty and not worth eating. Matt had no desire to laugh at these strange customs. He pretended to be serious and did not say a word.

  There’s no reason to describe everything Matt saw and did at the court of the cannibal king, because the learned professor who was Matt’s translator has recorded it all in a fat book entitled Forty-nine Days at the Court of King Bum Drum in the Savage Land of the Cannibals.

  Poor King Bum Drum did everything he could to make Matt’s stay at court full, varied, and amusing, but the cannibals’ games were so wild that Matt could only look on them with curiosity, and sometimes even with displeasure.

  Matt did not want any part of many of their games.

  For example, Bum Drum had an old rifle which was carried out from the treasury with great pomp and circumstance, and Matt was supposed to shoot it, using Bum Drum’s eldest daughter for a target. Matt didn’t want to, and that hurt Bum Drum’s feelings. Again they started making sad somersaults. And, worst of all, Matt had offended the witch doctor.

  “He pretends to be our friend, but he doesn’t act like one,” said the witch doctor. “Now I know what to do.”

  That evening, the witch doctor slipped some poison into the shell Matt used as a wineglass.

  This poison made everything turn red, then blue, then green, and then black. Then you died.

  In the finest royal tent, on a chair of gold at a golden table, Matt was saying: “Why is everything turning red? The cannibals are red. Everything’s red.”

  As soon as Matt’s doctor heard that, he jumped up and began to wave his arms in despair, because he had read about this poison. The book said there was a cure for every African malady except the one this poison caused—and the doctor didn’t have the antidote in his first-aid kit.